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EU Votes To Ban Bee-Harming Pesticides (theguardian.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: The European Union will ban the world's most widely used insecticides from all fields due to the serious danger they pose to bees. The ban on neonicotinoids, approved by member nations on Friday, is expected to come into force by the end of 2018 and will mean they can only be used in closed greenhouses.
Bees and other insects are vital for global food production as they pollinate three-quarters of all crops. The plummeting numbers of pollinators in recent years has been blamed, in part, on the widespread use of pesticides. The EU banned the use of neonicotinoids on flowering crops that attract bees, such as oil seed rape, in 2013. fBut in February, a major report from the European Union's scientific risk assessors (Efsa) concluded that the high risk to both honeybees and wild bees resulted from any outdoor use, because the pesticides contaminate soil and water. This leads to the pesticides appearing in wildflowers or succeeding crops. A recent study of honey samples revealed global contamination by neonicotinoids. The ban on the three main neonicotinoids has widespread public support, with almost 5 million people signing a petition from campaign group Avaaz.
Bees and other insects are vital for global food production as they pollinate three-quarters of all crops. The plummeting numbers of pollinators in recent years has been blamed, in part, on the widespread use of pesticides. The EU banned the use of neonicotinoids on flowering crops that attract bees, such as oil seed rape, in 2013. fBut in February, a major report from the European Union's scientific risk assessors (Efsa) concluded that the high risk to both honeybees and wild bees resulted from any outdoor use, because the pesticides contaminate soil and water. This leads to the pesticides appearing in wildflowers or succeeding crops. A recent study of honey samples revealed global contamination by neonicotinoids. The ban on the three main neonicotinoids has widespread public support, with almost 5 million people signing a petition from campaign group Avaaz.
They can pry it from my cold dead fingers. Nothing gets rid of roaches like it
You know, that could be prophetic. Some of these things affect humans as well.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
So do you not believe that this is the cause of colony collapse or do you not think that a huge decline in pollinators is a problem?
So do you not believe that this is the cause of colony collapse or do you not think that a huge decline in pollinators is a problem?
It seems like we'll soon be getting a reasonably definitive answer on that first question. If colonies rebound after the ban, then that's a pretty good indicator of causality. Likewise, if no rebound occurs over a period of time, such that persistent contamination is ruled out, then that also is an indicator that there may be something else at play.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
That's horseshit. California feeds most of the country to one extent or another, and we've got the most stringent pesticide reduction program in the US.
We can have crops without pesticides. We can't have crops without bees.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Requiem for the UK dream, more like it.
Recent studies have criticized earlier studies, and concluded that neonicotinoids were NOT significantly harming honeybees, except when in conjunction with other environmental stressors and varroa mites mites in particular (and no, global warming was not one of them).
Further, annual censuses have shown an overall growth in bee population worldwide, including in the US and UK.
They keep trying to solve non-problems, by enacting harmful measures. My concern is not for bees, but the UK and its government. It seems to be led lately by a ship of fools.
What will farmers do without pesticides?
And what will farmers do without bees?
Ezekiel 23:20