Tom's Corner

Clothianidin fails after only 2 years as a cotton seed treatment and needs an untested pesticide, sulfoxaflor, piled on top under a Section 18. Glyphosate overuse creates superweeds and genetic modification is underway to create 2,4-D resistant commodity crops. Now, corn farmers struggle to cope with rootworm resistance, and well educated professionals act as if this is a surprise.

The chemical companies smile, because the capture of American agriculture in chemical dependency is nearly complete.

The issue of aerial spraying of agricultural pesticides has been controversial since it began and is the reason the Boulder County Beekeepers’ Association was formed in 1975. Earlier this month I circulated a story, Letter Says Aerial Application Safe Around Bees, that claimed the safety of aerial spraying for bees. It is short, read it as well as the comments. Then read the next story, Pesticide Drift, Sick Rural Residents Force Face-Off With Big Agriculture, which gives a much different view of aerial spraying. There are 8 pages of comments on the second article, try to read at least some of them because they are informative as well.

New on the Organic View.

The Coalition against BAYER (CBGNetwork or CBG) has launched a campaign asking the Bayer company for a total ban of neonicotinoid pesticides. According to CBG’s campaign, “Bayer managers have known the risks which neonicotinoid pesticides create for the environment since the early 1990s. The company downplayed the risks, submitted deficient studies to authorities and viewed the massive decline of honey bees and pollinators in many parts of the world as ‘collateral damage’.”

In this segment of The Organic View Radio Show, host, June Stoyer, and special guest host, Tom Theobald, talk to Philipp Mimkes, a physicist who has been working fulltime with the Coalition for the last 18 years. We will discuss the CBG’s Campaign To Ban Neonicotinoids and their most recent efforts.

This came in at the end of last week: EPA does not suspend clothianidin. Apparently the source is the EPA web site.

This is an agency completely out of control and out of touch with reality. The position they are taking is an outrage, and if they truly believe that there is no problem, and they must because that is what they are saying, they should be removed from their positions immediately for incompetence and dereliction of duty. The underlying issue with clothianidin, which they conveniently ignore, is that it has never met the qualifications for registration in the first place. The EPA simply chooses to ignore the law and not only continues to do so, but is apparently poised to repeat that performance with sulfoxaflor.

Who holds these people to account? Where is Congress? Where is common sense? Where is any sense?

This Friday (July 20th) I am co-hosting a 30 minute program on The Organic View Radio Show. June Stoyer and I will interview John Van Alten, President of the Ontario Beekeepers’ Association, about the bee kills in Ontario and Quebec and the review of several neonicotinoids by Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency, their EPA. This came as a result of a Better Farming article, Bee deaths prompt insecticide re-evaluation. This is a call in program so you can do more than just listen if you wish. The program starts at 2:00 Colorado time. It will available later as a pod cast too.

UPDATE, July 20th, 10:15 am:

Change of plans. We weren’t able to finalize the details with John Van Alten, President of the Ontario Beekeepers, for this afternoon’s interview, but have an even more timely interview. We will have Steve Ellis, longtime Minnesota commercial beekeeper and secretary of the National Honey Bee Advisory Board. The subject will be the decision yesterday by the EPA to deny the legal petition filed in April calling for removal of clothianidin from the market. This should be an interesting, informative, and perhaps explosive interview. For those of you unable to listen live, it will be available as a podcast later. Today (Friday) 2:00 P.M. Colorado time, Connect a little ahead of time. See you on the radio.

Steve Ellis Talks About The EPA’s Decision To Reject Legal Petition On “The Neonicotinoid View”