This is big. Dutch Parliament has moved to ban all neonicotinoids. Holland has one of the most intensive agricultural regions in the world and some of the most highly contaminated soil and groundwater. Some of the groundwater is so heavily contaminated that it could be used itself as a pesticide.
This morning as the news was breaking June Stoyer of the Organic View interviewed Dutch toxicologist Henk Tennekes and myself. Listen on YouTube below.
This article by Graham White, PESTICIDES, THE BIRDS AND THE BEES, appeared in the International Beekeepers Quarterly and explores the wider ramifications of how neonicotinoid insecticides are affecting the entire food chain, especially the insectivorous birds.
Recently the United States Geological Survey released a huge database of Pesticide Use Maps that map the use of 459 pesticides from 1992-2011.
BCBA’s webmaster has animated these maps for three of the most widely used neonicotinoids: clothianidin, imidacloprid and thiamethoxam. These animations show the sudden explosion of these pesticides across the American landscape.
As dramatic as these maps are however, seed treatments were not included in these calculations, and yet seed treatments are perhaps the most widely employed pesticide delivery system in history. You would think that the EPA, in its efforts to protect mankind and the environment, would want this usage tracked, but instead is pressing to have these seed treatments exempted from the category of “pesticide use”, so that there would be no data kept on these massive uses.
Click on each of the maps below to see them animated.
Originally published on: Jun 17, 2013
Updated on: Feb 1, 2014 (added 2010 and 2011 maps)
This link will take you to the podcast of an interview conducted recently on The Organic View with Randy Oliver and Walter Haefeker of Germany. While it is long, those of you trying to understand these issues should listen to it all. Scroll down about half way for the podcast.
This is a very informative interview with University of Saskatchewan biologist Christy Morrissey on her second year of a four year study of neonicotinoid contamination of prairie wetlands. The industry line is “no problem in Canada’s prairie provinces” where millions of acres of canola are grown, but I hear otherwise from Canadian beekeepers, who tell me the colony losses are 50% or higher, however beekeepers are reluctant to speak out. Listen to the audio of the interview, but read the text as well.
Founding member Tom Theobald speaks out about the EPA and clothianidin
> Read more at Tom’s Corner
