Neonicotinoids – is it time for them to buzz off?

An important research article from the American Bird Conservancy has just been published, which analysed all the factors related to bird declines on grassland/ farmland. It looks at ‘habitat loss’. agricultural intensification and pesticide use – among other things. They found that the ‘strongest predictor’ for bird population decline, was the intensity of pesticide use.

This confirms what we have suspected for some years, namely that the super-efficiency of neoncotinoids, in killing virtually all insect life, above and below ground, coupled with the extreme persistence of clothianidin and imidacloprid in farm-soils (2-19 years) – is the best ‘predictor’ of farmland bird declines.

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0057457
Abstract

” Common agricultural birds are in decline, both in Europe and in North America.
Evidence from Europe suggests that agricultural intensification and, for some species, the indirect effects of pesticides mediated through a loss of insect food resource is in part responsible.

On a state-by-state basis for the conterminous Unites States (U.S.), we looked at several agronomic variables to predict the number of grassland species increasing or declining according to breeding bird surveys conducted between 1980 and 2003.

Best predictors of species declines were the lethal risk from insecticide use modeled from pesticide impact studies, followed by the loss of cropped pasture. Loss of permanent pasture or simple measures of agricultural intensification such as the proportion of land under crop or the proportion of farmland treated with herbicides did not explain bird declines as well.

Because the proportion of farmland treated with insecticides, and more particularly the lethal risk to birds from the use of current insecticides feature so prominently in the best models, this suggests that, in the U.S. at least, pesticide toxicity to birds should be considered as an important factor in grassland bird declines.

• There is no evidence to suggest that crop yield will be harmfully affected; and even if there was a small drop in production the waste stats for the UK indicate that food availability would be of no concern to anyone.
• There is evidence to suggest that icides are so toxic that they kill indiscriminately and negatively affect the entire food chain in levels so low that it is quite possible they could be causing damage to every living thing that consumes any amount, even in undetectable quantities… (This could include humans).
• This is why the precautionary measure exists. The reason it is not being implemented is unfortunately due to government incompetence and miss-information.
(With respect claiming we need an absolute change in western lifestyle is a little beyond this topic and quite possibly counterproductive, not to say that I wouldn’t agree in a much deeper interrelated discussion)
• A Paranoid person may claim that the government must have unwritten back hand agreements and that the chemical industry have these ”Trolls” working for them to spread confusion; I however simply believe that those who claim there are no better alternatives without chemical interference are either wearing blinkers, or really do not understand that the entire eco system works best with a “natural balance”
• ***** Better Alternatives are Progressive Developments; more of the same is Stagnating Failures*****

An interesting ‘factoid’ which was passed to me recently. In 1972 when the American EPA came into existence, total pesticide useage in the USA was 200,000,000 lbs by weight.
Today – – 40 odd years later, guess what pesticide use is now in America?
400 million lbs? 600 million lbs? even 800 million lbs?
No, the answer is apparently 5 BILLION pounds of pesticide used annually in the USA – that is:
5,000,000,000 lbs of poison. There are roughly 300 million people in theUSA, so that implies that they are using approx 15lbs of pesticides per person, per year.

California – just one state – uses almost 200 million pounds of pesticides on a SINGLE crop – almonds.
Check it out: http://www.cdpr.ca.gov/docs/pur/pur10rep/comrpt10.pdf

Is it any wonder that America has some of the worst cancer rates and other disease rates in the world?

Someone here mentioned urban people not having land to produce food for themselves 😉 what a load of crap. Our country is OURS 🙂 claim the fields and start planting. This documentary demonstartes that its possible;
http://ediblecitythemovie.com/
as well as this one;
http://chopwoodcarrywaterplantseeds.blogspot.se/2012/02/urban-roots-farms-in-schools.html
and this one;
http://youtu.be/yUUJsb4V5aU

Grow the Revolution we need no pesticides 🙂

I have just spotted that Garden centre giants the Garden Centre Group and Dobbies have removed neonicotinoid-based pesticide products from their stores:

http://www.hortweek.com/news/1174099/garden-centre-group-takes-neonicotinoid-based-product-off-shelves/

BUZZKILL – A SPECIAL VIDEO REPORT BY ANCHORMAN DAN RATHER

Tonight there will be a short documentary shown on American TV – called ‘Buzzkill’ which will focus on the vast loss of bee colonies that has just happened among he California Almond groves.
Over 825,000 acres of the Central Valley of California is planted as a single monoculture of Almonds. This is the most profitable crop in all America – and generates more income than the entire California wine and tourism industries combined.

However, since they have killed all other plants and flowers in this 825,000 acre plantation, they have created an ecological dead-zone that supports few native bees, insects or birds. In addition they apply 20 million pounds weight of pesticides to the Almonds each year – that is 200 million pounds of pesticides in the last decade.

They have to bring 1.5 million beehives from all over America to pollinate the Almonds, which all bloom at the same time over a 3 week period. But the bees are exposed to all the pesticides used on the Almonds – and even worse, they bring with them stored pollen from Florida, Midwest etc – that is also contaminated with neonicotinoids.

The result every year has been the loss of about 30% of all the bee colonies brought to the Almonds. But this season it has been much worse, more than 50% of all the colonies have died within a matter of weeks, that is 750,000 bee colonies, valued at about $200 each – or $1.5 BILLION worth of bees. One farmer, Bret Adee, took 13,000 colonies to the Almonds this year and he has lost 10,000 hives of bees – worth around $2 million. it is an ecological disaster on a huge scale and this could be the last year. Because many of these migratory bee farmers will be bankrupted by this, which could spell economic disaster for the almond industry as well.

The film is broadcast at 8pm US Eastern time on Tuesday, so it will be Wednesday morning here before you can see it.

We now have an agreed EU ban for two years on (much) neonicitinoid use (as at 29 April 2013). Thank goodness. (Regrettably UK Environment minister Owen Paterson voted against the ban.)

It’s not just affecting bees.

A Dutch paper on the effects of one of the neonicitinoids on aquatic life has just been published: http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0062374

The authors conclude that: ” In addition to the existing experimental evidence on the negative effects of imidacloprid on invertebrate life, our study, based on data from large-scale field monitoring during multiple years, shows that serious concern about the far-reaching consequences of the abundant use of imidacloprid for aquatic ecosystems is justified.”

As the neonicitinoids have been spread far and wide (mostly since 2004), it is possible that the level of damage to life generally will be as extensive as that caused by DDT. It does seem shocking that many governments, including the UK’s, have let these pesticides explode into the environment.