Fifty years ago the scientist Rachel Carson issued a warning, in her epic book Silent Spring, about the dangers of pesticides to birds, insect life, wildlife, the soil, the environment and human health. If we continued to spray a rain of poison indiscriminately over our farms, our wildlife and our environment, she warned, we will end up with a poisoned world in which birds no longer sing. Rachel Carson is considered to be the founder of the environment movement. She drew attention, for the first time, to the fact that pesticides can degrade the soil, contaminate waterways, kill harmless and beneficial insects and wildlife, and disrupt our eco-systems. She was the first person, too, to warn of the dangers of systemic pesticides that permeate all the tissues of a plant and make them poisonous. The world of systemic insecticides, she warned, is a weird world surpassing the imaginings of the brothers Grimm—it is a world where the enchanted forest of the fairly tales becomes a poisonous forest in which an insect that chews a leaf or sucks the sap of a plant is doomed.’
When her book was published, chemical companies launched a vicious, personal attack on her and ridiculed her claims, and as a result, her warnings were largely ignored, and more and more powerful sprays are being used around the world.
Today 5 billion pounds of pesticide are poured onto the planet every year, and it’s almost impossible to find any place on earth where pesticide residues are not detectable. And almost every human being on earth is subject to contact with chemicals from the moment of conception until their death.
At the time that Rachel Carson issued her warning, back in 1962, farmers were spraying pesticides like 245T and DDT all over New Zealand, and pesticides were invested with almost magical powers. Chemical companies claimed they were going to revolutionise agriculture, feed the world, increase yields --the same sort of things that are being promised about GE crops today.
DDT was hailed as a magic bullet that would stamp out insect born disease and win the farmer’s war with pests overnight. 245T was also hailed as a wonder chemical and used extensively all over New Zealand to kill gorse. The inventor of DDT, Paul Muller, won the Nobel Prize and it was used so extensively around the world, before it was finally banned in 1970’s, that it’s difficult to find a living being on earth without traces of DDT or a breakdown product of it, in their fat.
Our government was so enthusiastic about these pesticides that it gave a 50% subsidy to farmers who used them to get rid of gorse and other weeds and pests.
Chemical companies insisted that 245T and DDT were safe and harmless, and so farmers sprinkled it like talcum powder all over our clean and green land.
When scientists began to express concerns about their potential health effects, they were ridiculed. The MP for Hawkes Bay, Dr Bill Sutton, said at the time “All this talk about health risks from 245T is just emotional poppycock without a shred of scientific evidence to support it.” Chemical companies, too, ridiculed those who raised concerns, and the manufacturer claimed that 245T had less potential to cause harm than aspirin, vitamin C or common salt.
Even the Department of Health waded into the debate and claimed that 245 T did not present any significant threat to public health. As a result, New Zealand was the last country in the world to stop manufacturing it.
Yet less than a decade after these confident assertions were made, the International Agency for Research on Cancer concluded that dioxin, which is a breakdown product of 245 T, is a human carcinogen, a substance that is known to cause cancer in humans. And that even minute amounts of the pesticide DDT can cause cancer, birth defects, immune system damage.
I mention all this to provide some historical context for the debate that is raging today about the safety of another class of pesticides called Neonicotinoids, and their effect on honeybees and other pollinators and beneficial insects.
Neonicotinoids came onto the market in the early nineties, and quickly became the most widely used insecticide in the world. They are used on a wide range of crops in New Zealand such as maize, squash, brassica, other vegetables, grass and rye seed and on most garden centre plants.
They are neurotoxins, and are designed to attack the nerve cells and the nervous system of insects, and to impair their memory and brain metabolism. And they are revolutionary in several ways. Firstly, they are systemic, and so they are absorbed into the tissue of a plant, and permeate the plant for its entire life, making the entire plant poisonous, including the pollen and nectar, so that any insect that chews or sucks on the plant dies.
But unfortunately, like all pesticides, they fail to differentiate between good and bad insects, and are poisonous to beneficial insects like honeybees, butterflies and other pollinating insects that collect pollen or nectar from a crop.
Secondly, these systemic pesticides are increasingly being used preventatively, as an insurance policy as it were, it were, rather than as a reaction to an attack by a specific pest. And so entire crops and landscapes are being deliberately made poisonous to all insect life, above and below ground, year after year.
Over the past couple of years 150 scientific studies on the effects of neonicotinoids on bees have been published, and many of these confirm that they are extremely toxic to bees, even in tiny sub lethal doses, and have other harmful effects on bee colonies, including losses in the number of queens, a significant increase in the number of bees that fail to return from food foraging trips, and impairment of their memory, grooming behaviour and ability to navigate,
Recent studies by Jeffrey Pettis in the USA and Cedric Alaux in France, have found that chronic exposure to even very low doses of neonicotinoids (below their allegedly safe level) affects the immune systems of bees, and causes cumulative damage to their central nervous systems, which increases with every exposure to them, and this makes bee colonies more susceptible to viruses, mites and fungal infections.
The chemical company Bayer has known about this from the outset. Imidaclorpid is the active ingredient of a Bayer insecticide that is used for termite control called Premise. A Bayer leaflet advertises the fact that Premise disorients termites, so they stop their natural grooming behaviour, and are unable to maintain colony health. As a result, naturally occurring pathogenic fungi in the soil attack and kill them. Termites are social insects and are closely related to bees, so logically, one would assume that imidaclorpid would have a similar effect on bees, compromising their health and their ability to combat natural pathogens like Varroa.
Some researchers have likened neonics to the aids of the insect world because of their long-term effect on the immune systems of insects. The victim appears to die from a range of pathogenic diseases, but the real cause, some claim, is a crippled immune and neurological system.
Another concern is that the synergistic action between neonicotinoid insecticides, fungicides and other pesticides can vastly increase their toxicity, but there has been very little research on this, because surfactants are not deemed to be hazardous substances. An American researcher, Marian Frasier, claims that when neonics are mixed with fungicide, their toxicity can increase by up to 1000%. Our own bee researcher, Dr Mark Goodwin, says surfactants that are used with insecticides, are extremely toxic to bees, but don’t have to be registered under the HSNO act. He says two of them, Pulse and Boost, kill 100% of the bees they contact at 1 % of the recommended rate.
Scientific studies also confirm that neonics are water soluble; slow to break down in the environment, and leach into soils, groundwater and waterways, where they can persist for years, and be absorbed and excreted by later crops. They also poison soil life, including earthworms, beetles and bugs.
After reviewing this growing body of research, scientists at the European Food Safety Agency concluded that previous industry-sponsored studies about neonicotinoids were flawed and that they posed an unacceptably high risk to bees when used on flowering crops. As a result, on 30 September this year, the European Union will ban the use of three neonicotinoids on corn, oil seed rape, sunflowers and other flowering crops across Europe for the next two years.
While welcoming this move, some scientists and campaigners are concerned that Europe has become so contaminated with neonicotinoids in the soil, waterways and general environment, that this partial ban may have little discernible effect. The UK Department of Agriculture, for example, has admitted that the entire farming landscape in Britain is so saturated with neonics that it’s almost impossible to conduct any control experiment for neonics, anywhere in England.
Dutch researchers have also found widespread contamination of their waterways and soil, with neonics. They have found places where imidacloprid levels in waterways are 25,000 times above the acceptable limit.
Even so, the partial, two year ban on neonics has been vehemently opposed by chemical companies and the Crop Protection Association, an industry lobbying group that is financed by six global corporations that own 74% of the global pesticide market and 49% of the global seed market, namely, Bayer, Monsanto, Dow, Syngenta, Dupont and BASF.
These companies have been furiously lobbying the European Union and other governments, to block moves to suspend or reassess neonicotinoids, and to sow doubt about their harmful effects, by focussing on other issues affecting bee health such as Varroa and other pathogens and loss of food sources. The chemical industry acknowledges that neonics are toxic to bees, but it claims that the science around neonics is inconclusive, and that a ban on their use would be premature and disastrous for food production.
The pesticide lobby is an extremely powerful and wealthy lobby, and no government likes to get offside with them. Their reach is also extensive and they actively seek to co-opt industry associations and individuals. Bayer, Syngenta, BASF have all donated large amounts of money to the British Beekeeping Association, for example, in return for endorsing their pesticides as bee friendly.
When I presented a petition to Parliament, three years ago, calling for an urgent reassessment of neonicotinoids, and initiated a wide-ranging inquiry into bee health and the impact of neonicotinoids, AgCarm, representing the chemical industry, turned up to the Environment select committee to oppose my petition, and claimed that there was no evidence that neonicotinoids were contributing to bee mortality around the world.
They were supported by the former Minister of Agriculture, David Carter, who acknowledged that neonics are toxic to bees, but argued that since they were essential for farmers to combat other harmful insects, it would be folly to ban them just because of the harm they caused to beneficial insects like bees.
While the chemical companies stall for time and oppose any moves to restrict or tighten regulations around the British neonics, a coalition of organisations in many countries is calling for neoniotinoids to be taken off the market, because of their cumulative and potentially irreversible effect on bees and other pollinators.
This was also the unanimous conclusion of the British Parliament’s cross party Environment Audit committee, following an extensive investigation into the effect of neonics on bees. The committee concluded we shouldn’t wait until there is full scientific certainty before taking precautionary action to remove these pesticides, because of the incredible harm that would occur if there weren’t enough bees to pollinate our crops. The weight of scientific evidence warrants precautionary action now, the committee recommended.
The precautionary principle is recognised in international law, and says that ‘where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty should not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation.’
Scientists as well as politicians and campaigners, are arguing that if ever there was an issue where the precautionary principle ought to guide our actions, this would surely be it. As Professor Goulson, a British scientist who led a key study showing neonicotinoid harm to bees, puts it; “it seems that pretty much any independent review comes to the same conclusion—we should stop using these chemicals until we have much more convincing evidence that they are safe. At present the balance of evidence suggests they are very far from safe.”
In New Zealand, our honeybees are already in a fragile state, thanks to the Varroa mite, which is rapidly becoming resistant to two of the chemicals that are used to treat it. Why would we add to their stress, and even push them further towards collapse, by allowing the widespread use of pesticides that we know are highly toxic to them, and can cause long term, cumulative damage to their immune and nervous systems.
But far from taking precautionary action, our government has just approved yet another neonicotinoid insecticide seed treatment called Savage 600 --despite the fact the European Union has recently suspended the use of this pesticide for two years because of its risk to bees.
The government has also refused to release the results of an inquiry into the effects of neonicotinoids on bees that Parliament’s Environment select committee carried out two years ago, or to require them to be reassessed.
I should add in passing that its not only neonicotinoid pesticides that are poisoning bees. I have a list of 32 pesticides that are known to be highly toxic to bees. But scientists are particularly concerned about neonics because of their persistence in the environment, and the fact that they are so widely used, and can cause irreversible and cumulative damage to non-target insects such as bees.
This raises the question, how did all these bee toxic pesticides get approved in the first place? I mean why would governments allow such potentially harmful chemicals to be used at all?
A lawsuit by a coalition of organisations in America, claims that neonicotinoids were rushed onto the market before tests on their environmental impact had been completed, and against the advice of some EPA scientists who warned that they posed a major risk to non-target species like bees.
In the case of clothianidin, Bayer used a process known as a conditional registration to rush it onto the market, with minimal studies of its potential harm.
The lawsuit also claims that the conventional risk assessment process for registering pesticides is fundamentally flawed, as it focuses on acute toxicity and doesn’t adequately assess sub lethal effects of pesticides at very low doses (below accepted safe levels). It doesn’t consider the impact of combined pesticide residues in the environment or for insects like honey bees, and field tests are not required to test for behavioural or long term effects.
Perhaps the most fundamental flaw in the entire assessment process is that assessments rely on data provided by the pesticide companies themselves, and this data is not subject to scientific peer review and publication. There is no requirement for pesticide companies to publish all the research they conduct, and so there is a risk that they will use cherry-picked, favourable studies to obtain regulatory approval, while suppressing or withholding any unfavourable studies.
Once a pesticide is registered, it is considered safe until such time as there is positive proof of its harm. It is not up to regulatory agencies to prove that they are safe, but on others, such as your own organisation, to prove they are unsafe.
And once approved by our regulator, there is virtually no oversight of pesticides in New Zealand-- and few sanctions for farmers who misuse pesticides.
Pesticide use is not monitored in New Zealand (other than for detecting residues in produce that is exported) and no data is collected officially about how many pesticides are used, and how frequently.
The Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act contains a provision –section 49—that states that people must not apply a toxic substance in an area where bees are foraging, or to any blooming plant or tree if bees are likely to be foraging. But nobody seems to be monitoring this, or policing breaches.
Three different organisations are charged with administering the HSNO act, the Ministry for the Environment, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Department of Labour, and territorial authorities are responsible for monitoring the act.
But there has been, to my knowledge, only one prosecution taken under the act in relation to bee deaths.
And while there used to be an advisory service within the old Department of Agriculture, which assisted bee-keepers and monitored bee health, that service was disbanded in 1986, and nothing has really taken its place. So despite the crucial role bees play in our horticultural and agricultural industries, there’s no one unit, or group within the ministry of Primary Industries, which is looking after our bee keeping industry, or bee health in New Zealand.
I should also point out that neonics are not only harming bees. They are also poisoning birds and other non-target insects, like earthworms.
The authors of a new study claim that a single corn kernel coated with a neonicotinoid pesticide can kill a songbird, and even a tiny grain of wheat treated with these pesticides can fatally poison a bird.
The American Bird Conservancy is calling for a ban on the use of neonicotinoid pesticides as a seed treatment because of their extreme toxicity to birds.
Henk Tennekes, a Dutch researcher and author of a book entitled ‘the Systemic Pesticides, a Disaster in the Making,’ argues that so many insects that are vital to our survival are being wiped out as a result of the extensive soil and water contamination by neonicotinoid pesticides that we are witnessing ‘an ecological collapse before our eyes.’
He points out that most bird and insect species are already struggling to survive, and have declined by around 65-70% in the past half century, in some countries.
Further declines in insects and birds as a result of our continuing widespread use of neonicotinoid pesticides, will create an ecological disaster, he predicts.
Graham White, an environmental author who keeps bees in Scotland, shares his concern. “We are witnessing an ecological collapse in all the wildlife that used to live in fields, hedgerows, ponds and streams. All the common species we knew as children are being wiped out from the face of the countryside.”
In a similar vein, a journalist who visited a farm in Iowa that grows GM corn, with seeds that are pre-treated with neonicotinoids and fungicides, wrote. “I listened and heard nothing, no bird, no click of insect. There were no bees. The air, the ground, seemed vacant. There is something strange about a farm that intentionally creates a biological desert to produce food for one species; namely, us.”
There has been no similar stocktake of our wildlife in New Zealand, but I suspect if there was, we would find a similarly steep decline.
One of my favourite past-times, as a child, was listening to frogs croak.
But who has heard a frog croaking in New Zealand recently? Frogs are becoming extinct here in New Zealand and all over the world. A recent American study found that a single spray of pesticide onto a frog, at doses that are approved by regulatory authorities, can kill a frog within an hour.
From frogs to bees and birds and beetles and butterflies, the evidence is mounting that the pesticide bombardment of our crops and farms is having a devastating effect on wildlife.
And the question facing us is, how many more birds, bees, frogs, butterflies and other creatures will be killed or driven to extinction before we impose greater controls on pesticides?
Fifty years ago, Rachel Carson said it was ironic to think that man might determine his future by something as seemingly trivial as the choice of an insect spray.
This probably sounded far-fetched at the time. But today it is, literally, true.
So if we are to avoid an ecological disaster, we need much greater research into the effect of pesticides on bees and beneficial insects, and a requirement that they are tested for their long term and sub lethal effects on pollinators and wildlife, before they can be used. We need a rule that chemical companies must publish all of their data, and not hide behind commercial sensitivity. As the Chair of Britain’s Environment committee noted –chemical companies often try to pick holes in studies linking their products to bee decline, but when pushed to publish their own research and safety studies, they hide behind claims of commercial sensitivity. What have they got to hide?
We need tighter regulations and monitoring, of pesticides, and a publically available pesticide database, and a requirement that farmers and growers report to the database what pesticides they use, how frequently, and in what quantity.
We should also follow the European Union and suspend the use of neonicotinoids, while further research is undertaken to ascertain their safety.
And we need a long-term bee health strategy, as other countries have, and a pesticide reduction strategy that helps us to transition away from chemically dependent, intensive agriculture and horticulture towards more sustainable, organic and bee-friendly food production methods.
Sweden, Denmark, Norway and the Netherlands have pesticide reduction policies in place which have resulted in substantially reduced pesticide use overall.
And we should insist that pesticide companies pay for the environmental and other costs that are caused by their products. Why should pesticide companies be allowed to profit by their use, but not have to contribute towards the costs of the environmental damage they cause.
Finally I realise that there are many threats to our bees, and not just neonicotinoid pesticides; and that your organisation is under resourced and stretched in many directions. Nevertheless, I believe your association has a vitally important role to play in pushing for greater controls on pesticides, and phasing out of bee toxic pesticides like neonicotinoids. New Zealanders are right behind you in this. Like you they care passionately about the future of bees, and I believe with their support and your leadership we could make some real changes that would help protect out bees from the dire threats they face in many countries overseas.
Source:
Implications for Bees of Neonicotinoids, speech by Sue Kedgley to the National Beekeepers Association conference, 19 June 2013
Susan Jane Kedgley (born 1948), BA (Victoria University), TTC (University of Auckland), MA (Hons) (University of Otago), is a New Zealand politician, food campaigner and author.
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