As EU pesticide ban to ‘save bees’ backfires, focus of failure turns to activist politicians

David Zaruk | October 13, 2014 | Risk Monger

Within only 10 months of the precautionary ban on neonicotinoid pesticides, farmers in the UK are reporting significant crop losses for canola due to an infestation of cabbage stem flea beetles ravaging the British countryside. With canola crop losses this year estimated to between 20-50 percent, it is known that seeds treated with neonicotinoids (banned in the EU since December, 2013) would have efficiently controlled those predators. In what should have been a perfect growing season, some canola crops in Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire have been totally written off as the flea beetles continue to munch away and multiply.

Farmers had been trying to save their crops spraying pyrethroids on their fields every couple days, but these older pyrethroids are nowhere near as effective as the banned neonics and much harsher on the environment (and bees).  DEFRA in the UK has just given emergency authorisation to spray neonicotinoids on oilseed rape – a temporary measure under the conditions of the ban, not as effective as seed treated neonics and a good example of a member state recognising the stupidity of the ban. Sadly, it is likely to be too little, too late......To Read More....