Neonicotinoids - The Soil Association

[Ecompost]

New evidence reveals how bad the situation really is...

Something unthinkable is happening

It’s been going on for years and despite a partial ban that’s currently in place, it’s far from over. We are talking about neonicotinoids – insecticides linked to declines in our precious bees. Now new evidence suggests their impact on our wildlife, and not just bees, is likely to have been underestimated. Shockingly it shows that, as we write, our very countryside is being poisoned – and the story doesn’t just stop at neonics.
Not sure if this is the best place to post this type of update, perhaps others will direct me more appropriately. Anyway, it is a damming report on the practice of chemical farming
First it was flowering crops...now it is our poppies, blackberries and blossom trees

The pesticide industry said neonicotinoid seed treatments were highly targeted; saying only pests that attack the crop are exposed. This wasn’t true. First we found out that bees feeding on the flowers of treated crops eat neonics at levels that reduce their very ability to survive. This left the Government no choice but to impose the present temporary ban back in 2013.

Now, disturbing new research, part-funded by the Soil Association and thanks to the Roddick Foundation, reveals that neonicotinoids don’t just stop at the crop. They seep into soils and dust and into hedgerows and flowers growing nearby. With around 60% of neonicotinoids remaining in use, used on wheat and barley – our countryside is being poisoned.

A cocktail of chemicals make matters worse

The research had more bad news. Farmers are unknowingly poisoning hedgerows near to neonic treated crops with a whole cocktail of chemicals. Bees are shockingly ingesting up to 10 different types from pollen. Worse, we don’t know what these pesticide mixtures are doing – it’s an area that has been totally ignored. Some previous research however suggests that some of the mixtures found may be increasing the toxicity of neonics by up to 1,000 times.

This suggests that the Government’s main wildlife strategy – paying farmers to create ‘bee havens’ and other wildlife habitats next to crops – could be doing more harm than good.

Instead of being the haven for wildlife they should be, our hedgerows have turned into potential death traps for the creatures that rely on them.

We’ve made a simple infographic to show the situation – please share this with your friends and family to spread the message about this important issue now before we run out of time.

We have a clear aim:to save our wildlife before it’s too late by extending the ban to all crops and by making the ban permanent.

But getting rid of neonicotinoids is not enough, they are the last straw for our already vulnerable farmland wildlife, suffering from a lack of food, habitat and changing weather. We work with farmers to create healthy farmland and countryside which isn’t reliant on pesticides and that finally solves the wildlife crisis.

o 1 in 10 of Europe's wild bees are facing extinction1

o 70% of butterfly species are declining2

o Farmland birds are declining most in the UK3

 

[Seamaiden]

Are crop seeds in the UK sold with neonic coatings? That's the main problem here in the US given the total land surface that's cultivated under monocrops, that just also happen to be planted as neonic-coated seeds. Which, as it happens to turn out, isn't really ALL that effective.

 

[Ecompost]

Are crop seeds in the UK sold with neonic coatings? That's the main problem here in the US given the total land surface that's cultivated under monocrops, that just also happen to be planted as neonic-coated seeds. Which, as it happens to turn out, isn't really ALL that effective.

yes, pretty much, there has been a ban on spraying that was circumvented by coatings. Its incredible tha the UK with a so called public service broadcaster like the BBC failed to acknowledge the worthless lip service of a spray ban.
The UK is big time GMO, they pretend not to be, this is BS, its only Europe stopping the Tories from completely covering the land in Chemicals from massive farming conglomerates that aren't even local and so don't get the sense of community to bind a better behaviour

 

[Purpletrain]

Well again another myth run wild insecticdes killing bees .. i deal with bee breeders and keepers actually its propaganda .. there was decline in bees but when there is a reporter in need of a cool story ?? or someone trying to fight a company lets make a make believe story look true ..
Nature works in mysterious ways ,, A specie may decline and of chances are it will rebound back like the bee ,, life is a cycle what was once thought that the polar bear is going extinct has turned out FALSE
They never tell you the full story the NEWS mind you ..
LAst years honey harvests was a record year over 500,000 gallons bees have been on in the incline for some time
there was 1 - 2 year where of course not due to Chemicals it was do to winter kill off and some sort of hive disorder but again due to cloning bee;s possibly???
Also being some places in the world got record snow falls or sub zero temps abnormal weather patterns ????
The world is changing people tend to easily blame man When its just a natural thing we are just in the era of noticing it more world events etc ..
We are evolving as well as any living thing on this planet including plants
And when ever a reporter see's something its his chance to smudge the truth and make it much worse then it really is ..
Like Global warming .. etc

 

[GT21]

Well again another myth run wild insecticdes killing bees .. i deal with bee breeders and keepers actually its propaganda .. there was decline in bees but when there is a reporter in need of a cool story ?? or someone trying to fight a company lets make a make believe story look true ..
Nature works in mysterious ways ,, A specie may decline and of chances are it will rebound back like the bee ,, life is a cycle what was once thought that the polar bear is going extinct has turned out FALSE
They never tell you the full story the NEWS mind you ..
LAst years honey harvests was a record year over 500,000 gallons bees have been on in the incline for some time
there was 1 - 2 year where of course not due to Chemicals it was do to winter kill off and some sort of hive disorder but again due to cloning bee;s possibly???
Also being some places in the world got record snow falls or sub zero temps abnormal weather patterns ????
The world is changing people tend to easily blame man When its just a natural thing we are just in the era of noticing it more world events etc ..
We are evolving as well as any living thing on this planet including plants
And when ever a reporter see's something its his chance to smudge the truth and make it much worse then it really is ..
Like Global warming .. etc

I respectfully disagree with it just being propaganda... i was reading an article in class one day about how the Chinese are out in the fields up in trees collecting and distributing pollen because they have destroyed the bees environment. They were loose with the pesticide laws 10 -20 years ago and now they are paying for it. I do agree life cycles will ebb n flow but we are REALLY screwin up this planet.

 

[Purpletrain]

I honestly think if this was the case how come honey has not been pulled of the shelf ??? it should have all that poison in it ??? now as a Farmer i personally like this approach Why c Cause it saves me money on Gas ..
Gas comes out of my pocket and crop insurance does not cover it ..So instead of dumping thousands of gallons of insecticides or crop dusting and being blown away and even leached into your drinking water ?? which approach would you go ??
Organic ?? Here is a secret they use as much if not more insecticides that are Chem based
Contrary to popular belief.
And when its there lively hood trust me you would hate to know what organic farmers really do
Everyone has to realize something here its just not Insects ,, Its also Fungi that destroys crops , there both devastating, and can wipe out couple hundred acres in a few days >???

So where does this end ??? i know at the store where you buy out products ,,
Could you imagine prices at the store 100 - 500 percent Hike ?? right across the board that 15 dollar T bone now costs you 50 bucks 2 liters of milk 20 bucks , Chicken the cheapest on the shelfs and why most people eat it ..
Up 200 percent people wold starve to death Think about it most people are barely getting by now living paycheck to paycheck is some cases the Government subsidizes to keep pricing down .. Right this very min
With that much of a hike trust me they will pull the plug and stop doing it
being we only harvest maybe 1/4 - to 1/2 of crop rest destroyed by allowing fungi and insects to run free
Could you imagine the rippling effect

 

[Purpletrain]

Yo GT i will post some pictures this week trust me its a Hoax

Never let a good crisis go to waste, But what do you do if the “crisis” turns out to be a dud? Easy–invent a new one.

That’s what we’re seeing currently in Washington and Brussels, where government regulators, deprived of one environmental calamity–by, of all things, data–are scrambling for a new narrative.

For years environmentalists have been raising alarms about the “bee-pocalypse”–a supposed catastrophic decline in honeybee populations–and calling for an immediate ban of a new class of state-of-the-art “systemic” pesticides called neonicotinoids (“neonics” for short) which they blamed for the die-offs.
The media were all over the story, endlessly replaying the environmentalist meme that without bees to pollinate our crops, “one-third of every bite of food we eat” would disappear. Banning neonics and saving bees was tantamount to saving the world from starvation.

The science supporting a ban was questionable, to say the least. Poorly designed experiments that overdosed bees in the lab were contradicted by large-scale field studies that confirmed real-world experience–honeybees actually thrive in neonic-treated crops. But those lab studies were enough for the regulators in Brussels, who ignored their own scientists and the loud objections of the British, among others, and passed an EU-wide ban which started at the end of 2013.

Always alert for ways to emulate bad policy, the White House wasn’t far behind. Within months, the president set up a Pollinator Task Force mandated with stemming the “continued loss of commercial honey bee colonies…which could have profound implications for agriculture and food.” Meanwhile, the U.S. EPA took steps to severely restrict neonic use, and the provincial government of Ontario, Canada, announced plans for an 80 percent reduction in neonics by 2016.

But then the regulatory juggernaut hit a pothole. A few independent journalists decided to find out just how bad the “bee-pocalypse” was. Turns out it wasn’t the usual environmentalists’ exaggeration. It was a complete fabrication.

Hidden in plain sight on the websites of USDA and other regulatory organizations, official honeybee counts showed rising numbers of hives. In the United States, Canada, Europe and indeed the world as whole, honeybee counts have been rising–sometimes dramatically–since neonics first came on the market 20 years ago.

 

[sumerianak]

Nature works in mysterious ways ,, A specie may decline and of chances are it will rebound back like the bee ,, life is a cycle what was once thought that the polar bear is going extinct has turned out FALSE

the Mammuthus went extinct because they were less than the required number for reproduction and mix mix of their genpool, back then (after the death and birth of something or whatever happened) some 700k years ago, as a result of them being less then 50 thousand animals left they were not able to fully recover from whatever happened, some claim that, for them to be able to make the neccesary splash in the gen-pool for survival and refreshment of said mammals , they needed to be at least 100-150 thousands. you still believe that nature can take care of itself? what if we, humans, are the answer to the care of earth? maybe earth decided that she needed intelligent guardians to hold her wellbeing in our best interest and care for her.. stupid earth, lol.. the question of the bees is another subject that's been pushed forward to make us chase straws, to forget about other crimes these corporations are doing, it's an important question nevertheless.