In a startling about-face, the EPA issued this report titled,Benefits of Neonicotinoid Seed Treatments to Soybean Production
In the abstract the EPA states that the Biological and Economic Analysis Division (BEAD) “concludes that these seed treatments provide negligible overall benefits to soybean production in most situations.”
The real test will be whether the EPA takes any action subsequent to this report, or if this is just a higher order of posturing. EPA management has shown no hesitation to ignore the repeated warnings of its own scientists about the hazards of the neonicotinoids or they never would have reached the market in the first place. It will be interesting to see if BEAD takes a look at other commodity crops.
For the farmers who have been sold a bill of goods and have paid a premium for treated seed that gave them no benefits, this may result in legal action against the companies that misled them for years.
