David Spratt: Arctic melt hits food security in bitter taste of life on a hotter planet

by David Spratt, first published in RenewEconomy, Climate Code Red, July 11, 2013

Arctic melt has pushed the Jet Stream into
a more meandering, S-shape pattern, dragging
down and stalling cold and wet conditions
over Europe

In the UK and Ireland,  wet summer and autumn followed by a cold winter and spring have hit wheat yields, potato production and cattle feed, a foretaste of how climate change can affect food security, even in the developed economies.

And the culprit in this drama is rapid Arctic melting, which has destabilised the Jet Stream and brought extreme weather – unusual cold, heavy snowfall, record rain and hot spells — to much of northern Europe and North America, and record heat to the Arctic. Following Superstorm Sandy’s battering of the US north-east coast in 2012, flooding in June across central Europe was the worst in 400 years.

Rapid Arctic melting – sea-ice volume in September 2012 was down by four-fifths compared to the summer average 30 years ago – has helped change the Jet Stream, the river of high altitude air that works to separates Arctic weather from that of northern Europe, Russia and Canada, and which governs much northern hemisphere weather.

The ice loss has added to ocean and atmospheric heat, pushing the Jet Stream into a more meandering, S-shape pattern, dragging down and stalling cold and wet conditions over Europe, and bringing record heat to the Arctic, as was dramatically experienced in Alaska last month.

Professor Jennifer Francis, of Rutgers Institute of Coastal and Marine Science, says the Arctic-driven changes to the Jet Stream allows “the cold air from the Arctic to plunge much further south. The pattern can be slow to change because the [southern] wave of the jet stream is getting bigger…  so whatever weather you have now is going to stick around.”

In March, new research found that “the severe loss of summertime Arctic sea ice — attributed to greenhouse warming — appears to enhance Northern Hemisphere jet stream meandering, intensify Arctic air mass invasions toward middle latitudes, and increase the frequency of atmospheric blocking events like the one that steered Hurricane Sandy west into the densely populated New York City area.”

And a recent study by Liu et al found that “the recent decline of Arctic sea ice has played a critical role in the recent cold and snowy winters” across the northern hemisphere.

Last September, Francis warned that 2012′s record sea ice melt could lead to a cold winter in the UK and northern Europe. And so it turned out, with farmers copping the consequences:

WET SUMMER AND AUTUMN: Six out of the last seven summers in the UK (since the record-smashing Arctic melt of 2007) have seen below-average temperatures and sunshine, and above-average rainfall. 2012 was the UK’s second wettest year on record, with autumn rain almost 50% higher than long-term average. In Ireland, twice the average amount of rainfall was recorded in many parts of the country during the three summer months of 2012.  People across the UK and Ireland will readily tell you that “We haven’t had a summer in four or five years” and, unusually for them, complain of “bitter” and “terrible” winters, with temperatures dropping as low as –18 C in Northern Ireland.

COLD WINTER AND SPRING: “It’s been the longest winter on record in this country. Not since the records began 70 years ago has there been a March as cold as this year’s. It’s been followed by the coldest April in 25 years in some areas of the country,” reported the Irish Examiner on 9 May 2013.  The Irish spring in 2103 was coldest in 62 years across most of the country, and dull and windy. Spring in the UK this year was the coldest in 50 years.

BAD COMBINATION: This combination of events has wrecked farmer’s schedules. Less growth in a dull 2012 summer – combined with water-logged crops and pastures in autumn – reduced yields, and some crops had to be left in the ground.  The spring 2013 growing season, including for apples and pears as well as pasture, started up to six weeks late due to the cold, dull conditions. And waterlogged fields meant that across Ireland cattle were still being kept in their winter sheds in the first week of June, ostensibly a summer month.  The consequences – whilst mild compared to climate-change impacts on vulnerable communities in the developing world from the African Sahel to Asia’s changing monsoons – show how easily the security of food production can be disrupted:

WHEAT:  In the UK, a wet autumn, hard winter and cold spring have resulted in one of the smallest wheat harvests in a generation, 30% below normal. Britain, generally the third biggest wheat grower in the EU, will be a net importer for the first time in 11 years. Charlotte Garbutt, a senior analyst at the industry-financed Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board says: “Normally we export around 2.5m tonnes of wheat but this year we expect to have to import 2.5m tonnes.” The latest analysis from the UK  Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs says total farming income decreased by £737 million in 2012 to £4.7bn, as farmers faced both crop losses and higher feed costs.

STOCK LOSSES: Late snowstorms across England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland in March 2013, with drifts of up to 5 metres, killed an estimated 40,000 newborn lambs. In Ireland’s west, one-quarter more animals died in the first three months of 2013 compared to 2012, with some vets trained to look for suicidal behaviour in farmers.

POTATO SHORTAGE: A wet autumn and poor season in 2012 prevented many crops being harvested in Ireland. Supermarket price-squeezing has also driven some farmers out of the industry, together resulting in reduced yields of at least 30 per cent in 2012. By spring 2013, potato prices had almost tripled in many parts of Ireland, with supplies exhausted and a reliance on imports from central Europe.

Limavady farmer, James Wray, told UTV News that said the changing weather in recent weeks had forced the price up: “This year has been a terrible growing season with loads of crops lost and loads of crops not harvested and any crops that have been harvested have produced low yields. There just isn’t any potatoes left in the country, there are no farmers with potatoes left, so whatever potatoes are about, are very, very expensive. If you go to any of the major supermarkets most of their potatoes are coming in from Europe just to bridge the gap.”

Potato shortages have a particular cultural resonance in Ireland as a consequence of the Irish potato famine of the mid-nineteenth century, which killed a million people and forced another million to emigrate.

FEED SHORTAGE: In the last week of May (the final week of spring), farmers in Ireland’s west were queueing for hay and silage imports from England, France and the Netherlands as their winter feed became exhausted and a lack of pasture growth in spring due to cold and overcast conditions, and wet fields, prevented cattle from being moved from their winter sheds.  More than 13,000 tonnes of feed was imported, but even so farmer Enda Stenson said local farmers “have neither money nor fodder.” Many had sold down their herds to be able to buy feed for the remainder.

BEES IN TROUBLE: Bad weather and disease is also threatening honey production, with some beekeepers expecting to produce no honey as bees have been unable to mate and hives are decimated. And bees play a crucial role in pollinating many crops. Jim Donohoe, of the Federation of Irish Beekeepers’ Associations, told the Irish Independent that the problem was weather related: “We’ve had bad summers before, but because of the wind, rain and lack of sunshine, we’ve had serious problems with colonies wanting to swarm, but the queens being unable to mate with drones which refused to fly because there wasn’t calm conditions. This year, we had a delayed winter where bees couldn’t fly. The flowers were delayed coming out, and that crucial period meant bees died from old age. All of this combines to about 50% of colonies being lost. If we don’t get milder weather, the losses will be closer to 75%."

These stories may seem trivial compared to the devastating impact of climate change on global food security and prices, and their political consequences. Writing on Egypt’s new political turmoil, Nafeez Ahmed notes that:

Food price hikes have coincided with devastating climate change impacts in the form of extreme weather in key food-basket regions. Since 2010, we have seen droughts and heat-waves in the US, Russia, and China, leading to a dramatic fall in wheat yields, on which Egypt is heavily dependent. The subsequent doubling of global wheat prices – from $157/metric tonne in June 2010 to $326/metric tonne in February 2011 – directly affected millions of Egyptians, who already spend about 40% of their income on food. That helped trigger the events that led to the fall of Hosni Mubarak in 2011, but the same configuration of factors is worsening.

And Lester Brown, head of the Earth Policy Institute in Washington, has warned that grain harvests are already shrinking as US, India and China come close to "peak water." He says that 18 countries, together containing half the world’s people, are now over-pumping their underground water tables to the point – known as “peak water” – where they are not replenishing and where harvests are getting smaller each year.

Together these stories paint a compelling picture of the threat to food security from climate change, not just in the Middle East, Asia and Africa, but in the heart of the developed world too.

http://www.climatecodered.org/2013/07/arctic-melt-hits-food-security-in.html

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Pesticides spark broad biodiversity loss: Agricultural chemicals affect invertebrates in streams and soil, even at 'safe' levels

by Sharon Oosthoek, Nature News, June 17, 2013; doi:10.1038/nature.2013.13214

Pesticide use reduces the biodiversity of insects like the emperor dragonfly (Anax imperator), a new study finds. GHISLAIN SIMARD/BIOSPHOTO/FLPA

Agricultural pesticides have been linked to widespread invertebrate biodiversity loss in two new research papers.

Pesticide use has sharply reduced the regional biodiversity of stream invertebrates, such as mayflies and dragonflies, in Europe and Australia, finds a study published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences¹.

Previous research has shown similar decreases in individual streams, but the study by Mikhail Beketov, an aquatic ecologist at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research in Leipzig, Germany, and his colleagues analysed the effects of pesticides over broad regions.

The team examined 23 streams in the central plains of Germany, 16 in the western plains of France and 24 in southern Victoria, Australia. They classified streams according to three different levels of pesticide contamination: uncontaminated, slightly contaminated and highly contaminated.

The researchers found that there were up to 42% fewer species in highly contaminated than in uncontaminated streams in Europe. Highly contaminated streams in Australia showed a decrease in the number of invertebrate families by up to 27% when contrasted with uncontaminated streams.

Moreover, the authors say that diversity decreased at pesticide concentrations that European regulations deem environmentally protective. "It shows our risk assessments don't work," says Beketov. "I think we should care about this because invertebrates are an important part of the food web."

Emma Rosi-Marshall, an aquatic ecologist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, New York, says that she finds the results compelling. "We are at a crisis point, with species loss on a global scale, especially in freshwater ecosystems. Considering pesticides along with other known threats to biodiversity may be crucial for halting species declines," she says.

But toxicologist Keith Solomon of the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada, says he has concerns about the study's sample size. "It begs the question as to what is happening in all the other streams out there," he says. "If these streams are representative of the worst case, then the effects may only be confined to these types of scenarios and not apply to the entire environment."

Insecticide threat

The second paper, from biologist Dave Goulson of the University of Sussex, UK, reviews the environmental risk posed by neonicotinoid insecticides². Its publication on 14 June in The Journal of Applied Ecology comes soon after the European Commission's April announcement of a two-year ban on three commonly used neonicotinoids over concerns that they are killing bees.

Goulson's work includes data from agrichemical companies and suggests that neonicotinoids accumulate in soil at levels that can kill soil invertebrates such as Eisenia foetida, a type of earthworm.

"The bulk of these studies suggest the half-life of these chemicals is between one and four years," he says. "If you apply these chemicals once a year on crops, they will accumulate."

Goulson's review also cites earlier studies suggesting that grain-eating birds such as partridges may be dying after eating as few as five seeds treated with neonicotinoids. The insecticide is most often applied as a seed dressing to crops such as maize and soya beans. "The very strong focus on bees has perhaps blinded people to the broader implications," Goulson says.

Both papers demonstrate the importance of conducting ecosystem assessments after pesticide use, says ecotoxicologist Ken Drouillard of the University of Windsor in Ontario, Canada. "We can't think our job is done after the [pre-application] risk assessment," he says. "Unfortunately during a global economic crisis, budget cuts come at the cost of ecosystem health monitoring."

http://www.nature.com/news/pesticides-spark-broad-biodiversity-loss-1.13214

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Criminally corrupt EPA unconditionally approves sulfoxaflor pesticide extremely toxic to bees with no supporting research

EPA Approves New Pesticide Highly Toxic to Bees

ecowatch, May 9, 2013Beyond Pesticides

Photo courtesy of Shutterstock

In apparent contradiction to its stated intention to protect pollinators and find solutions to the current pollinator crisis, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) approved the unconditional registration of the new insecticide sulfoxaflor, which the agency classifies as highly toxic to honey bees. Despite warnings and concerns raised by beekeepers and environmental groups, sulfoxaflor will further endanger bees and beekeeping. The U.S. EPA continues to put industry interests first to exacerbate an already dire pollinator crisis.

In January, the agency proposed to impose conditional registration on sulfoxaflor due to inconclusive and outstanding data on long-term honey bee brood impacts. At that time, the agency requested two additional studies—a study on residue impacts, and a field test to assess impacts to honey bee colonies and brood development. This week, the EPA granted full unconditional registration to sulfoxaflor stating that there were no outstanding data, and that even though sulfoxaflor is highly toxic to bees it does not demonstrate substantial residual toxicity to exposed bees, nor are “catastrophic effects” on bees expected from its use. While sulfoxaflor exhibited behavioral and navigational abnormalities in honey bees, the EPA downplays these effects as “short-lived.” The agency says it has reviewed 400 studies in collaboration with its counterparts in Australia and Canada to support its decision. However, these studies do not seem to be currently available in the public scientific literature.

Instead of denying or suspending registration in the face of dire pollinator losses, the EPA instead has chosen to mitigate sulfoxaflor impacts to bees by approving a reduced application rate from that initially requested by the registrant, Dow AgroSciences LLC, as well as increasing the time interval between successive applications. The EPA also approved new pollinator label language it believes to be “robust” to protect pollinators. Sulfoxaflor labels will state language such as:

“Do not apply this product at any time between 3 days prior to bloom and until after petal fall.”

and advisory pollinator statement:

“Notifying known beekeepers within 1 mile of the treatment area 48 hours before the product is applied will allow them to take additional steps to protect their bees. Also limiting application to times when managed bees and native pollinators are least active, e.g., before 7 a.m. or after 7 p.m. local time or when temperature is below 55^oF at the site of application, will minimize risk to bees.”

However, beekeepers have noted that 48 hour notice is oftentimes insufficient to move their hives to a safer location and that prior notification is not always provided. Label statements, like those authorized for sulfoxaflor, not only underscore the risks to bees, but like most pesticide product labels are unrealistic since sulfoxaflor is a systemic pesticide whose residues can continue to exist in the plant (including pollen and nectar) for longer periods of time that well surpasses the recommended application intervals, and therefore exposes bees to residues longer than suggested. Similarly, label language such as this is extremely difficult to enforce at the use level.

Several comments were submitted by concerned beekeepers and environmental advocacy groups, like Beyond Pesticides, that stated that approval of a pesticide highly toxic to bees would only exacerbate the problems faced by an already tenuous honey bee industry and further decimate bee populations. However, the EPA outrightly dismissed these concerns and instead pointed to a need for sulfoxaflor by industry and agriculture groups to control insects no longer being controlled by increasingly ineffective pesticide technologies.

The EPA also noted that none of the objections to sulfoxaflor registrations pointed to any data “to support the opinion that registration of sulfoxaflor will pose a grave risks to bees,” even though the agency itself acknowledges that sulfoxaflor is highly toxic to bees. Instead, the agency says, “Comments suggested that pesticides can pose risks to bees and that the agency should not allow yet another pesticide to threaten bees.”

The agency’s approval of sulfoxaflor and its attempts to mitigate risks to honey bees highlight the real deficiencies in the agency’s risk assessment process. Risk assessment approaches have historically underestimated real-world risks, and attempts to mitigate adverse impacts with measures that prove insufficient and impractical. These risk assessment approaches make determinations that the risks are “reasonable,” while failing to take into account numerous circumstances and realities that make honey bees vulnerable to chemical exposures, including user failure to adhere to application rate guidelines, and local environmental conditions that may predispose crops, and other plants, to accumulate higher chemical residues, especially in nectar and pollen. In addition to risks to bees, sulfoxaflor is also classified as “suggestive evidence of carcinogenic potential” based on the incidence of tumors and carcinomas in mice and rats.

Given the global phenomenon of bee decline and the recent precautions taken in the European Union regarding bee health with the two-year suspension of neonicotinoid pesticides known to be highly toxic to bees, it is irresponsible that the EPA will allow yet another chemical with a high potential to be hazardous to bee health into the environment. It is also counterintuitive to current agency and interagency work to protect pollinators.

Sulfoxaflor is a new active ingredient, whose mode of action is similar to that of neonicotinoid pesticides—it acts on the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor in insects. Even though it has not been classified as a neonicotinoid, it elicits similar neurological responses in honey bees, with many believing that sulfoxaflor is the new generation of neonicotinoid. Sulfoxaflor will be registered for use on vegetables, fruits, barley, canola, ornamentals, soybeans, wheat and others.

http://ecowatch.com/2013/epa-approves-new-pesticide-highly-toxic-to-bees/

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Please tell Home Depot to stop selling bee-poisoning neonicotinoid pesticides

Stop selling the bee poisoning neonicotinoids

Scientists studying the massive global bee die-off have unearthed a slew of evidence on the devastation across the food chain caused by the most widely-used pesticide on Earth, neonicotinoids. Once they enter the water supply, neonicotinoids wipe out dragonflies, snails and other waterborne life. The few hardy species that survive are left so toxic that they're killing birds -- and Lowe's and Home Depot are putting this toxic product right in our back yards.

The European Food Safety Authority just imposed a two-year ban on neonicotinoids. It's a bold step taken to avert a new Silent Spring. With up to a third of all honeybees vanishing each winter, beekeepers are saying that we are "on the brink" of not being able to pollinate all our crops.

Lowe's and Home Depot still stock their shelves with neonicotinoid pesticides, spreading the ecosystem-destroying toxin to homes and gardens across the United States. As consumers, we need to demand that these retailers pull the devastating pesticides from the shelves.

Tell Home Depot and Lowe’s to stop stocking neonicotinoids. 

Bayer and other pesticide manufacturers are shoveling cash at lobbyists in order to continue selling their poisonous products. But we're not here to protect corporate profits, we're here to protect our ecosystem to ensure our future. The first thing we need to do is take this devastating toxin out of our own neighborhoods.

One of the reasons these pesticides are so toxic is that they don't simply coat the surface -- neonicotinoids are absorbed into the plant itself. Honeybees that stop by later to pollinate the crops quickly accrue a lethal dose in their systems as they wander from flower to flower. The neurotoxin scrambles their system of navigation and other critical parts of the bee's brains. Even when it doesn't kill the bees outright, neonicotinoids alter immune system function in bees, making them more vulnerable to parasitic infections that are spreading through bee populations like wildfire.

Major retailers don't care what type of pesticides they sell, only what type of pesticides their customers will buy. If we send Lowe's and Home Depot, the nation's two largest home-and-garden superstores, a loud, clear message, we can get these toxic products off their shelves and out of our back yards -- and get smaller retailers around the country to follow suit.

Tell Home Depot and Lowe’s to get rid of the bee-killing neonicotinoids. 

SHARE THIS CAMPAIGN

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Avaaz campaign succeeds in banning bee-killing neonicotinoid pesticide use in Europe

Dear amazing Avaaz community, 

We did it -- Europe just banned bee-killing pesticides!! Mega-corporations like Bayer threw everything they had at this, but people-power, science and good governance came out on top!! 
Vanessa Amaral-Rogers from the specialist conservation organisation Buglife, says: 

“It was a close vote, but thanks to a massive mobilisation by Avaaz members, beekeepers, and others, we won! I have no doubt that the floods of phonecalls and emails to ministers, the actions in London, Brussels and Cologne, and the giant petition with 2.6 million signers made this result possible. Thank you Avaaz, and everyone who worked so hard to save bees!”

Bees pollinate two-thirds of all our food -- so when scientists noticed that silently, they were dying at a terrifying rate, Avaaz swung in to action, and we kept on swinging until we won. This week’s victory is the result of two years of flooding ministers with messages, organizing media-grabbing protests with beekeepers, funding opinion polls and much, much more. Here’s how we did it, together: 

• Keeping France strong. In January 2011, 1 million people sign our call to France to uphold its ban on deadly neonicotinoid pesticides. Avaaz members and beekeepers meet the French agriculture minister and fill the airwaves, pressing him to face down fierce industry lobbying and keep the ban, sending a strong signal to other European countries.


• Tackling industry head on. Bayer has faced Avaaz and allies protesting at its last three annual meetings. The pesticide giant's managers and investors are welcomed by beekeepers, loud buzzing, and massive banners with our 1 million plus call on them to suspend use of neonicotinoids until scientists reviewed their effect on bees. Avaaz even makes a presentation inside the meeting, but Bayer says 'no'.


• Making the science count. In January the European Food Safety Agency finds that three pesticides pose unacceptable risks to bees, and we jump in to ensure Europe's politicians respond to their scientific experts. Our new petition quickly grows to 2 million signatures. After many talks with EU decision-makers, Avaaz delivers our call right to the EU HQ in Brussels. Later that same day, the Commission proposes a two-year ban!


• Seizing our chance. The battle to save the bees heats up in February and March. Across the EU, Avaaz members are ready to respond as all 27 EU countries decide whether to welcome or block the proposal. When farming giants UK and Germany say they won't vote yes, Avaaz publishes public opinion polls showing huge majorities of Brits and Germans in favour of the ban. Avaaz members also send almost half a million emails to EU Agriculture Ministers.Apparently afraid of dealing with citizens rather than industry lobbyists, UK minister Owen Paterson complains of a “cyber-attack”, which journalists turn into a story in our favour! And then comes Bernie -- our 6 metre bee in Brussels -- a powerful visual way to deliver our petition as negotiations enter the final stages. Journalists flock to Bernie, and we hear we've helped get the Spanish ministry to look harder at the science and shift position . But we didn't get the majority we needed to pass the ban.


• Turning the red light green. In April the bee-saving proposal is sent to an Appeals Committee, giving us a glimmer of hope if we can switch a few more countries' positions. In the final sprint, Avaaz teams up with groups including Environmental Justice Foundation, Friends of the Earth and Pesticides Action Network, plus beekeepers and famous bee-loving fashion designers to organise an action outside the UK Parliament. In Germany, beekeepers launch their own Avaaz petition to their government, signed by over 150,000 Germans in just two days and delivered in Cologne soon after. More phone calls rain down on ministries in different capitals as Avaaz responds to a last-minute wrecking amendment by Hungary, and positions Bernie the bee again in Brussels. Pesticide companies buy adverts in the airport to catch arriving officials, and take to the airwaves suggesting other measures such as planting wild flowers. But their slick messaging machine is ignored,first Bulgaria then -- the big prize -- Germany switch their stances and this week we win, with over half of EU countries voting for the ban!

It’s been a long haul, to get this win, and it wouldn't have been possible without scientists, specialists, sympathetic officials, beekeepers and our campaign partners. We can be proud of what we've helped to accomplish together. 

One strong bees advocate, Paul de Zylva, head of the Pesticides and Pollinators Unit at Friends of the Earth said:

"Thanks to millions of Avaaz members who mobilised online and in the streets. Without a doubt Avaaz's massive petition and creative campaigning helped push this over the edge, complementing our work and that of other NGOs."

It's time to celebrate this breathing space for one of the earth's most precious and important creatures. But the EU ban is only in place for 2 years pending further review. And around the world bees continue to die from the pesticides which weaken and confuse them, as well as from loss of habitat as we plough up and build over the countryside. In Europe and across the world there's lots of work to do to ensure sound science guides our farming and environmental policies. And we're just the community for the job. :) 

With hope and happiness,

Ricken, Iain, Joseph, Emily, Alex, Michelle, Aldine, Julien, Anne, Christoph and the rest of the Avaaz team

PS: Let's keep this going -- chip in to ensure we can launch rapid-fire, multi-tactic campaigns on the issues we all care about: https://secure.avaaz.org/en/bees_victory/?bLRxadb&v=24658

PPS: Many Avaaz campaigns -- like the German beekeeper one this month -- are started by individuals or groups of members. Just click here to see how easy it is to start yours right now: http://www.avaaz.org/en/petition/start_a_petition/?rba13

SOURCES

The bees story, and Avaaz's role, have been mentioned in hundreds of articles. Here's a small selection:

EU bans pesticides over bee fears (Reuters)
http://www.reuters.com/video/2013/04/29/eu-bans-pesticides-over-bee-fears?videoId=242537247&videoChannel=5

Bee-harming pesticides escape proposed European ban (The Guardian)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/mar/15/bee-harming-pesticides-escape-european-ban

EU says it will push through better bee protections after members disagree over pesticides (Washington Post)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/eu-says-it-will-push-through-better-bee-protections-after-members-disagree-over-pesticides/2013/04/29/eea31ecc-b0d4-11e2-9fb1-62de9581c946_story.html

Save the bees: Protesters swarm around Parliament in support of pesticides ban (Mirror)
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/save-bees-protesters-swarm-around-1855996

Historic vote to ban neonicotinoid pesticides blamed for huge decline in bees (The Independent)
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/historic-vote-to-ban-neonicotinoid-pesticides-blamed-for-huge-decline-in-bees-8591807.html

EU to ban pesticides linked to bee decline (Al Jazeera)
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/europe/2013/04/2013429133837540126.html

European Union imposes ban on pesticides linked to bee deaths (RFI)

http://www.english.rfi.fr/environment/20130429-european-union-imposes-ban-pesticides-linked-bee-deaths

EU to ban bee-killing pesticides (EU Observer)
http://euobserver.com/environment/119979

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EU restricts neonicotinoid pesticide use to help save bees

EU aims to better protect bees from pesticides

APR 29, 2013  |  RAF CASERT FOR THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

EU aims to better protect bees from pesticides

Credit: The Associated Press

EU says it will push through better bee protections after members disagree over pesticides

BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union plans to restrict the use of three pesticides to better protect dwindling bee populations.

The announcement Monday was cheered by environmentalists, disappointed chemical companies and came after the bloc's 27 nations failed to agree on a common stand.

EU Consumer Commissioner Tonio Borg said his agency will override the deadlock and move "in the coming weeks" to restrict three neonicotinoid pesticides on plants and cereals that attract bees. The measure takes effect Dec. 1 for two years unless decisive new information becomes available.

Beekeepers have reported an unusual decline in bees over the past decade, particularly in Western Europe, according to the European Food Safety Authority. It says bees are critically important to the environment, sustaining biodiversity by providing pollination for a wide range of crops and wild plants — including most of the food crops in Europe.

Borg said bees contribute over 22 billion euros ($29 billion) a year to European agriculture.
In all, 15 EU nations were for the restrictions, eight were against and four abstained. Borg said he still felt confident in moving ahead because "a majority of member states now support our proposal."

Environmentalists welcomed the move.

"Today's pesticide ban throws Europe's bees a vital lifeline," said Iain Keith of the Avaaz environmental group. "Europe is taking science seriously and must now put the full ban in place to give bees the breathing space they need."

But major chemical companies, which were against Borg's proposals, have questioned the scientific evidence for such a ban.

The head of the EU Parliament's environmental committee acknowledged that "precise data is still lacking" but applauded the consumer agency's action.

"We shall now try to understand how exactly neonicotinoids affect the behavior of bees," said Matthias Groote.

http://www.newsdaily.com/article/9da497705b8ff3a1932ea60b4e80736e/eu-aims-to-better-protect-bees-from-pesticides

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Syngenta Pesticides Kill Bees [neonicotinoid pesticides]

Greenpeace Switzerland, April 22, 2013

With the help of local activists, on April 17, Greenpeace Switzerland scaled the building at Syngenta’s headquarters in Basel, Switzerland, and dropped a large banner proclaiming “Syngenta Pesticides Kill Bees.” The global agrochemical company consistently denies that its pesticide products kill bees. For the last 15 years, in Europe and North America bees are dying at an alarming extent. Depending on the year and region, the mortality of bee colonies is up 53%.

© Greenpeace 2013 / Michael Würtenberg

Syngenta’s products Actara and Cruiser contain the active ingredient thiamethoxam—a neonicotinoid—one of the pesticides most harmful to bees. With an annual turnover of $14.2 billion, Syngenta is the world’s biggest seller of pesticides—neonicotinoids representing around 10% of total sales. Neonicotinoids are a class of neuro-active insecticides chemically related to nicotine. They are used for seed dressing or sprayed directly on the plant. Extensive studies of the European Authority for Food Safety Authority and a recently published Greenpeace study shows that a small dose means acute poisoning to bees, leading to flight and navigation problems, fertility issues and inefficient and reduced foraging—making colonies more prone to illness or parasites.

Bees are crucial for our survival. At least one-third of global food production depends on pollination by bees and other insects. In addition to parasites, diseases, climate change and a decline in natural habitats from industrial agricultural practices—the use of pesticides is responsible for the devastating decline of bee populations worldwide.

Countries across Europe have already begun implementing the prohibition against bee-killing pesticides. In France, Germany, Slovenia and Italy, these toxins have been partially banned for years and have seen evidence of recovering bee populations without yield loss. While the European Commission is apparently willing to adopt far-reaching restrictions despite massive resistance from the industry, the Swiss government remains passive as Agriculture Minister Johann Schneider-Ammann appears to be intimidated by threats from Syngenta.

“Syngenta must stop spreading untruths. Syngenta responds to profit instead of to the protection of bees,” said Marianne Künzle, agricultural expert at Greenpeace Switzerland. “The dramatic death of wild bees and honey bees is a symptom of misguided industrial agriculture, which serves mainly the interests of powerful corporations like Syngenta. It must stop now. As the agriculture minister, Schneider-Ammann is required to address this issue. Protect our bees and agriculture—Prohibit bee killing pesticides!”

In February, Greenpeace Switzerland was joined by beekeepers from all over in Bern, Switzerland, and presented a petition of 80,000 signatures to protect the bees.

http://ecowatch.com/2013/greenpeace-syngenta-pesticides-kill-bees/

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Calamity for Our Most Beneficent Insect [bees: due to neonicotinoid pesticides and FDA corruption and/or incompetency]

by the Editorial Board of The New York Times, April 6, 2013

Every beekeeper, small or large, hobbyist or commercial, knows that honeybees are in trouble. Over the past decade, bee colonies have been dying in increasing numbers. Last year was especially bad. Perhaps as many as half the hives kept by commercial beekeepers died in 2012. The loss has created a crisis among fruit and vegetable growers, who depend on bees to pollinate their crops.

Last year, researchers identified a virus as a major cause of the die-off; the latest suspect is a class of pesticides called neonicotinoids, which are used to protect common agricultural seeds, including corn. The insecticides are systemic, which means they persist throughout the life of the plant. Scientists have demonstrated that exposure to these chemicals damages bees’ brain function, including their ability to home in on the hive.

In mid-March, environmental groups and beekeepers sued the Environmental Protection Agency to persuade it to withdraw its approval of two of the most widely used neonicotinoids. The manufacturers of these chemicals — notably Syngenta and Bayer CropScience — have claimed again and again that they are safe. And it is true that bees face other stresses. Even so, beekeepers managed to keep their hives relatively healthy before the increased use of neonicotinoids began in 2005.

Bees are essential to modern agriculture. There is no replacing them, no substitute of any meaningful kind. The E.P.A. has sent a team to central California — where more than 1.6 million hives are needed every spring — for “discussions.” That is not remotely good enough. The agency must conduct an immediate analysis of neonicotinoids. The manufacturers’ bland assurances seem empty in the face of this long-term die-off of these beneficial creatures.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/07/opinion/sunday/calamity-for-our-most-beneficent-insect.html

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Another disastrous year for honey bees: colony collapse disorder likely due to excessive use of neonicotinoid pesticides

Mystery Malady Kills More Bees, Heightening Worry on Farms

By Matt H. Mayes and Axel Gerdau

A Disastrous Year for Bees: For America’s beekeepers, who have struggled for nearly a decade with a mysterious malady called colony collapse disorder that kills honeybees en masse, this past year was particularly bad. Photo credit: Jim Wilson/The New York Times

 

by Michael Wines, The New York Times, March 28, 2013

 

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. — A mysterious malady that has been killing honeybees en masse for several years appears to have expanded drastically in the last year, commercial beekeepers say, wiping out 40% or even 50% of the hives needed to pollinate many of the nation’s fruits and vegetables.

A conclusive explanation so far has escaped scientists studying the ailment, colony collapse disorder, since it first surfaced around 2005. But beekeepers and some researchers say there is growing evidence that a powerful new class of pesticides known as neonicotinoids, incorporated into the plants themselves, could be an important factor. 
      

The pesticide industry disputes that. But its representatives also say they are open to further studies to clarify what, if anything, is happening.

 

“They looked so healthy last spring,” said Bill Dahle, 50, who owns Big Sky Honey in Fairview, Mont. “We were so proud of them. Then, about the first of September, they started to fall on their face, to die like crazy. We’ve been doing this 30 years, and we’ve never experienced this kind of loss before.”

 

In a show of concern, the Environmental Protection Agency recently sent its acting assistant administrator for chemical safety and two top chemical experts here, to the San Joaquin Valley of California, for discussions.

 

In the valley, where 1.6 million hives of bees just finished pollinating an endless expanse of almond groves, commercial beekeepers who only recently were losing a third of their bees to the disorder say the past year has brought far greater losses.

 

The federal Agriculture Department is to issue its own assessment in May. But in an interview, the research leader at its Beltsville, Md., bee research laboratory, Jeff Pettis, said he was confident that the death rate would be “much higher than it’s ever been.”

 

Following a now-familiar pattern, bee deaths rose swiftly last autumn and dwindled as operators moved colonies to faraway farms for the pollination season. Beekeepers say the latest string of deaths has dealt them a heavy blow.

 

Bret Adee, who is an owner, with his father and brother, of Adee Honey Farms of South Dakota, the nation’s largest beekeeper, described mounting losses.

 

“We lost 42% over the winter. But by the time we came around to pollinate almonds, it was a 55% loss,” he said in an interview here this week.

 

“They looked beautiful in October,” Mr. Adee said, “and in December, they started falling apart, when it got cold.”

 

Mr. Dahle said he had planned to bring 13,000 beehives from Montana — 31 tractor-trailers full — to work the California almond groves. But by the start of pollination last month, only 3,000 healthy hives remained.

 

Annual bee losses of 5-10% once were the norm for beekeepers. But after colony collapse disorder surfaced around 2005, the losses approached one-third of all bees, despite beekeepers’ best efforts to ensure their health.

 

Nor is the impact limited to beekeepers. The Agriculture Department says a quarter of the American diet, from apples to cherries to watermelons to onions, depends on pollination by honeybees. Fewer bees means smaller harvests and higher food prices.

 

Almonds are a bellwether. Eighty percent of the nation’s almonds grow here, and 80% of those are exported, a multibillion-dollar crop crucial to California agriculture. Pollinating up to 800,000 acres, with at least two hives per acre, takes as many as two-thirds of all commercial hives. 

      

This past winter’s die-off sent growers scrambling for enough hives to guarantee a harvest. Chris Moore, a beekeeper in Kountze, Tex., said he had planned to skip the groves after sickness killed 40% of his bees and left survivors weakened.

 

“But California was short, and I got a call in the middle of February that they were desperate for just about anything,” he said. So he sent two truckloads of hives that he normally would not have put to work.

 

Bee shortages pushed the cost to farmers of renting bees to $200 per hive at times, 20% above normal. That, too, may translate into higher prices for food.

 

Precisely why last year’s deaths were so great is unclear. Some blame drought in the Midwest, though Mr. Dahle lost nearly 80% of his bees despite excellent summer conditions. Others cite bee mites that have become increasingly resistant to pesticides. Still others blame viruses.

 

But many beekeepers suspect the biggest culprit is the growing soup of pesticides, fungicides and herbicides that are used to control pests.

 

While each substance has been certified, there has been less study of their combined effects.

Nor, many critics say, have scientists sufficiently studied the impact of neonicotinoids, the nicotine-derived pesticide that European regulators implicate in bee deaths.

 

The explosive growth of neonicotinoids since 2005 has roughly tracked rising bee deaths.

 

Neonics, as farmers call them, are applied in smaller doses than older pesticides. They are systemic pesticides, often embedded in seeds so that the plant itself carries the chemical that kills insects that feed on it.

 

Older pesticides could kill bees and other beneficial insects. But while they quickly degraded — often in a matter of days — neonicotinoids persist for weeks and even months. Beekeepers worry that bees carry a summer’s worth of contaminated pollen to hives, where ensuing generations dine on a steady dose of pesticide that, eaten once or twice, might not be dangerous.

 

“Soybean fields or canola fields or sunflower fields, they all have this systemic insecticide,” Mr. Adee said. “If you have one shot of whiskey on Thanksgiving and one on the Fourth of July, it’s not going to make any difference. But if you have whiskey every night, 365 days a year, your liver’s gone. It’s the same thing.”

 

Research to date on neonicotinoids “supports the notion that the products are safe and are not contributing in any measurable way to pollinator health concerns,” the president of CropLife America, Jay Vroom, said Wednesday. The group represents more than 90 pesticide producers.

 

He said the group nevertheless supported further research. “We stand with science and will let science take the regulation of our products in whatever direction science will guide it,” Mr. Vroom said.

 

A coalition of beekeepers and environmental and consumer groups sued the E.P.A. last week, saying it exceeded its authority by conditionally approving some neonicotinoids. The agency has begun an accelerated review of their impact on bees and other wildlife.

 

The European Union has proposed to ban their use on crops frequented by bees. Some researchers have concluded that neonicotinoids caused extensive die-offs in Germany and France.

 

Neonicotinoids are hardly the beekeepers’ only concern. Herbicide use has grown as farmers have adopted crop varieties, from corn to sunflowers, that are genetically modified to survive spraying with weedkillers. Experts say some fungicides have been laced with regulators that keep insects from maturing, a problem some beekeepers have reported.

 

Eric Mussen, an apiculturist at the University of California, Davis, said analysts had documented about 150 chemical residues in pollen and wax gathered from beehives.

 

“Where do you start?” Dr. Mussen said. “When you have all these chemicals at a sublethal level, how do they react with each other? What are the consequences?”

 

Experts say nobody knows. But Mr. Adee, who said he had long scorned environmentalists’ hand-wringing about such issues, said he was starting to wonder whether they had a point.

 

Of the “environmentalist” label, Mr. Adee said: “I would have been insulted if you had called me that a few years ago. But what you would have called extreme — a light comes on, and

you think, ‘These guys really have something. Maybe they were just ahead of the bell curve.’”

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/29/science/earth/soaring-bee-deaths-in-2012-sound-alarm-on-malady.html

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