In this segment of The Organic View Radio Show, host, June Stoyer talks to Tom Theobald and Graham White about the negative impact Clothianidin has and their efforts to raise awareness.
Clothianidin has been widely used as a seed treatment on many of the USA’s key crops (which include canola, soy, sunflowers, wheat and sugar beet crops) for eight growing seasons under a conditional registration granted while EPA waited for Bayer Crop Science, the pesticide’s maker, to conduct a field study assessing the insecticide’s threat to bee colony health. The EPA has moved from granting a conditional registration to full registration of this chemical just in time for the spring planting. Tom Theobald is the Colorado beekeeper that slammed the EPA for granting full registration to the Bayer Corporation for Clothianidin. He has been relentlessly trying to raise awareness about this chemical and has been working towards environmental reform regarding the EPA’s process to grant registration. Graham White is a beekeeper and environmental author who lives in Scotland, near Scotland’s greatest salmon-river, the River Tweed. He began keeping bees about 15 years ago and first noticed severe environmental changes to his bees, to butterflies and other wildlife, around 2002, which he soon linked to the introduction of neonicotinoid pesticides. He is the author and editor of a number of environmental books including: The Nature of Scotland and several collections of John Muir’s writings. He served for 20 years as the Director of the Edinburgh Environment Centre, providing over 200 local schools with outdoor education and environmental programs. His message is that we are in danger of creating an agricultural environmental that is toxic to wildlife of every kind.
