Farmers concerned about lack of pesticide-free seeds?

We may be seeing the beginning of support and awareness in the farm community.

American farmers are growing increasingly more frustrated with the lack of commercially available seeds that have not been pretreated with pesticides. Farmers across the Midwest have called on federal officials this week to provide greater access to seeds without pesticide treatments. The request comes as scientists and beekeepers highlight the nearly pervasive use of neonicotinoids as seed treatments on corn as a critical factor in recent bee die-offs, including colony collapse disorder (CCD).

What is referred to as “seed industry consolidation” in the article linked to above would, in my view, be more accurately described as “monopoly.”

Steve Ellis on NBC Nightly News

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Forbes challenges Bayer to act responsibly

Here is an interesting article that appeared in Forbes Magazine last week, April 26. It challenges Bayer to act responsibly in light of the evidence emerging relative to the neonicotinoids. Read it before you read Bayer’s response.

It would also be helpful to your understanding of the arguments if you have watched the French film completed in 2003 that shows so clearly that little of this alarming science tells us anything new. both the chemical industry and the regulators have known from the beginning how pernicious these neonics are and they chose to hide that information.

Designed to fail: why regulatory agencies don’t work

Those of you who have been in the trenches might find this article about the failure of regulatory agencies interesting. Below are some excerpts from the article by William Sanjour. Read the comments, too.

• Regulatory agencies captured by the industries they regulate are worse than no regulation at all since capture gives industry the power of government.

• From my own experience with the U.S. EPA, even if an inspector finds a violation, this only triggers a lengthy complex process with many levels of warning, review, appeal, negotiation, and adjudication before any action is taken (or, more often, avoided).

• When I was writing regulations, I was told on more than one occasion to make sure I put in enough loopholes.

• The people who get ahead are those clever ones with a talent for procrastination, obfuscation, and coming up with superficially plausible reasons for accomplishing nothing.

William Sanjour retired from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 2001 after 30 years, most of it spent in regulations. He has written and published articles about why regulatory agencies don’t work and what can be done about it. He has have been invited to testify at numerous Congressional hearings and at state legislatures and citizens groups around the country as well. He presently sits on the Board of Directors of the National Whistleblowers Center. This article and others can be found on the Web at Sanjour.info.

French bee documentary is a must-see

This just came from Graham White. If you have any interest at all in the issue of bees and systemic pesticides it deserves your time and attention. And if you are a beekeeper and plan to continue to be one, this subject demands your attention. The English subtitles are good but those of you who speak French will probably have an easier time of it. I encourage you to watch the entire documentary because it is playing out here in the U.S. in the same way.

The French bee-deaths documentary, “Temoin Genant,” is now on YouTube. It deals with the disaster which struck the French beekeeping industry as far back as 1994 when over 400,000 colonies a year were killed following the introduction of the systemic neurotoxin Imidacloprid/Gaucho for use on sunflowers and maize.

The film reveals is the fact that Bayer lied from the very outset about the effect of this pesticide for bees and other pollinators. It shows how the science was ignored, corrupted, distorted and buried for over ten years and how any scientist who dared to stand up for the truth was threatened, intimidated, bullied, transferred … careers were ruined, people’s lives were seriously damaged. The ONLY thing that worked for the French beekeepers was direct action; the science didn’t work; the regulators didn’t work; the politicians didn’t work and the government didn’t work. The only thing that brought action from the government was thousands of bee-farmers blocking the roads of Paris and causing a huge commotion. That worked.

– Graham White

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Jay Feldman on Coast to Coast

Here’s the second portion of the Coast to Coast spot, an interview with Jay Feldman, head of Beyond Pesticides. This portion focuses on the legal petition recently filed with the EPA. Another part of my interview is at the end of the interview with Jay.

Krupke’s courage

Linda Moulton Howe does a portion of the all-night radio show Coast to Coast AM the last Thursday of each month and this past Thursday the neonicotinoid issue occupied a portion of her time. This link will take you to an interview she did with Christian Krupke, Purdue Professor and lead researcher on the neonic study which came out earlier this year. Linda also interviewed me for this piece and a portion of that interview is at the end of the Krupke interview. Prof. Krupke has great courage in speaking out. He is in the heart of corn country and agri-business is his constituency, yet unlike so many others he has the cajones to speak the truth.

Nineteen year half-life

Christian Krupke asked if I could provide the reference for the statements we have been making about the 19 year half-life of clothiaidin. I knew I had seen it, not just imagined it, but it took some searching to find it again.Here it is. Start with the highlighted passage at page 26 of the document (lower left of the screen), then scroll down following the actual document pages 27, 28, 30, 40, 41, 45. 47. 48.

The available data on clothianidin shows that the compound is relatively persistent to very persistent under most circumstances. Clothianidin is stable to hydrolysis at all pH’s at environmental temperatures, moderately to highly stable under aerobic soil metabolism conditions (halflives range from 148 to 6,900 days) …

The date of this document is 2005. The chemical companies and the regulators have known from the beginning what the hazards were and they have remained silent while the damage ensued.

New Harvard study: in situ replication of CCD

Here is the study from the Harvard School of Public Health, In situ replication of honey bee colony collapse disorder (PDF). You are among the first to see this. Read it and judge for yourselves. We’ll see if this one reaches the bunker.

Abstract
The concern of persistent loss of honey bee (Apis mellifera L.) colonies worldwide since 2006, a phenomenon referred to as colony collapse disorder (CCD), has led us to investigate the role of imidacloprid, one of the neonicotinoid insecticides, in the emergence of CCD. CCD is commonly characterized by the sudden disappearance of honey bees (specifically worker bees) from hives containing adequate food and various stages of brood in abandoned colonies that are not occupied by honey bees from other colonies. This in situ study was designed to replicate CCD based on a plausible mechanistic hypothesis in which the occurrence of CCD since 2006 was resulted from the presence of imidacloprid, one of the neonicotinoid insecticides, in high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS), fed to honey bees as an alternative to sucrose-based food. We used a replicated split-plot design consisting of 4 independent apiary sites. Each apiary consisted of 4 different imidacloprid-treated hives and a control hive. The dosages used in this study were determined to reflect imidacloprid residue levels reported in the environment previously. All hives had no diseases of symptoms of parasitism during the 13-week dosing regime, and were alive 12 weeks afterward. However, 15 of 16 imidacloprid-treated hives (94%) were dead across 4 apiaries 23 weeks post imidacloprid dosing. Dead hives were remarkably empty except for stores of food and some pollen left, a resemblance of CCD. Data from this in situ study provide convincing evidence that exposure to sub-lethal levels of imidacloprid in HFCS causes honey bees to exhibit symptoms consistent to CCD 23 weeks post imidacloprid dosing. The survival of the control hives managed alongside with the pesticide-treated hives unequivocally augments this conclusion. The observed delayed mortality in honey bees caused by imidacloprid in HFCS is a novel and plausible mechanism for CCD, and should be validated in future studies.

The heat is rising

This came this morning from Graham White, An Open Letter to Tom Vilsac, USDA and Lisa Jackson, EPA.

The heat is rising. Regulators in the UK have retreated from their position that there is “no credible evidence,” (simply parroting what the U.S. EPA has been saying), to agreeing to reassess the approval of neonics in the U.K. There has been not a peep from the EPA yet. There will be another blockbuster study released to the public Thursday, this time from Harvard.

The EPA appears to be in the bunker. None of these managers will admit to anything unless forced to because their fingerprints are all over a decade or more of bad decisions that have led to this disaster.