by SUSAN MANN
Love it or hate it, one thing is for sure.
No one embroiled in the neonicotinoid pesticide debate appears to be content with an Ontario government discussion paper that proposes cutting the number of acres using neonicotinoid-treated corn and soybean seeds by 80 per cent by 2017.
Barry Senft, CEO of Grain Farmers of Ontario, describes the proposal as holding the potential to create a “bureaucratic nightmare.”
Pierre Petelle, vice president, chemistry, for CropLife Canada, questions how Ontario farmers will be able to compete with their global counterparts.
The Ontario Beekeepers’ Association newly elected president Tibor Szabo says the proposal “a really good start,” but doesn't go far enough. If the province’s pollinators are to be safeguarded from the threat of certain pesticides, more measures are needed.
The 17-page proposal, released today for a 60-day comment period by the ministries of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs and Environment and Climate Change, describes many different steps farmers will be expected to take starting next summer, including:
- Complete focused integrated pest management training for soybean and corn growing.
- Document integrated pest management activities used to reduce pest threats.
- Complete a credible risk assessment demonstrating the need to use neonicotinoid treated corn and soybean seed because a particular pest is above specific thresholds.
- Obtain verification of the assessment by a third party to confirm the method used to determine the risk of a pest was properly followed.
There will also be new requirements for seed sellers, including changes in how products are marketed. And there will be new rules for the use of neonicotinoid-treated seeds.
The proposed regulations will be implemented in July 2015 for the 2016 growing season.
As well, during the next 12 months, the government will be talking to the public, subject matter experts and stakeholders to develop a pollinator health action plan. The 80 per cent reduction target by 2017 is one of the plan’s main goals, as is reducing the overwinter honeybee mortality rate to 15 per cent by 2020. (This past winter, the mortality rate reached 58 per cent, the highest level ever recorded. For the previous 12 years Ontario’s overwinter mortality rate for the bees averaged 34 per cent).
Ontario Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs Minister Jeff Leal says in an emailed statement sent via his senior press and communications adviser that he looks “forward to continue working collaboratively with our partners as we more towards a balanced, practical approach that improves the health of Ontario’s pollinators, protects the environment and supports the growth of the agri-food sector.”
Of the almost seven million acres of field crops planted annually in Ontario, corn and soybeans are the two largest with corn at 2.4 million acres and soybeans at 2.5 million acres, the government’s document says.
About 99 per cent of the corn seed and 60 per cent of the soybean seed sold in Ontario is treated with neonicotinoids. “These two crops present the greatest potential for reductions in the use of neonicotinoid-treated seeds,” the document says.
The government plans to introduce a regulatory system to restrict the sale and use of neonicotinoid seed treatments for corn and soybeans under Ontario’s Pesticides Act. Neonicotinoid insecticides are currently regulated under the Act but seeds treated with the pesticide are not, the document says.
This change would “make it clear that these treated seeds are regulated under the Pesticides Act,” the document says. The proposal calls for creating a new class of pesticides under the Ontario Act to include seeds treated with pesticides.
Spokesmen for farm and industry groups say they don’t know how much the new proposals will cost farmers in added time and money to complete. “Whatever it is it will be more than what’s required today,” says Senft.
Petelle says a recent Conference Board of Canada study documented more than $600 million in costs to farmers “if they were to lose these technologies outright and 80 per cent is pretty close to losing them outright.”
The proposal adds a tremendous amount of red tape and bureaucracy. “There’s a cost to government; there’s a cost to farmers and to the vendors to understand how this is all going to work. There’s so much complexity here to the already challenging job of being a farmer,” Petelle says.
There could also be negative environmental consequences if the government adopts this proposal, Petelle notes, adding farmers may give up conservation tillage and the use of cover crops that they were able to use because of neonicotinoid-treated seeds. “All of that could be reversed by this decision.”
Petelle says they don’t know how much the proposal will cut pesticide manufacturers’ incomes but “the reality is it puts Ontario at a competitive disadvantage with the rest of the world.”
Senft says there are several unanswered questions in the government’s proposal. For example, about the need for the third party inspection, he asks “Who’s going to carry the liability if the third party inspector says a farmer doesn’t need seed treatment and it turns out the producer loses half of his crop because of that third party assessment?”
He also questions why farmers have to do these additional steps. “Our farmers are very strong stewards of the land as it is today and what is all this going to do other than cause a bureaucratic nightmare?”
Senft wonders how the government came up with the 80 per cent reduction in acreage planted with neonicotinoid-treated seeds. “There’s no basis for the 80 per cent whatsoever.”
Grain Farmers plans to submit comments on the proposal, but for the government to ask the group to help it implement the 80 per cent reduction is “not going to happen from a GFO perspective,” Senft notes. “They never asked us to help them put a number into place. The 80 per cent is something they picked.”
Ontario Beekeepers’ Szabo, on the other hand, offers a qualified support for the proposal, which, he says, “gives beekeeping a possible future in Ontario.”
But what his association wants to see, he says, is a “regulation on any systemic, persistent and mobile insecticide. Neonics, which would be the chlorinated derivatives of nicotine, are definitely on the agenda at the moment.” But pesticide manufacturers are working to replace neonicotinoids “with other types of systemic, insect-toxins. We don’t want to have to go through this again.”
Szabo says it will take “a couple of years, hopefully not longer, for the persistent feature of these poisons to dissipate.”
Don McCabe, newly elected president of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture, says the proposal was to be on the general farm organization’s agenda on the board meeting following its annual convention that wrapped today.
The OFA was conspicuously absent in the formation of Farm Action Now, a coalition of farm groups launched earlier this month that is calling for the province to establish a commissioner to advise the government on farm-related regulation and to help grow the agricultural sector. The coalition also wants to see a science-based approach to regulation to issues like the use of neonicotinoids.
McCabe says preparations for the OFA’s annual meeting and “some changes in rules of governance that had to be dealt with," had precluded more involvement initially with the coalition. However, the general farm organization did have representation at the initial meeting between the commodity groups, he says, and "I guarantee you the OFA will be actively engaged in the consultations going forward with the government.”
Fast following on the heels of the provincial proposal today was an update from Health Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency on its reevaluation of neonicotinoids.
The report noted that while negative effects in pollinators had been documented when they were exposed long term to sub-lethal levels of neonicotinoids, the studies – both in the lab and in the field used doses higher “than may normally be encountered in the environment.”
In its conclusion, the report notes “the available science indicates pollinator effects can result from sub-lethal exposure to neonicotinoids, but no conclusions can be drawn that actual environmental exposures from some uses are at levels that may result in effects.” More work is needed in this area, it says, “and all available information will be considered in the neonicotinoid re-evaluation.” BF
– with files from DON STONEMAN
Comments
Barry Senft, and the Grain Farmers of Ontario (GFO) are being somewhat cheeky when complaining about an imagined "bureaucratic nightmare" of legislation governing reductions in the use of neonicotinoids, while at the same time enjoying the benefits of the bureaucatic nightmare of ethanol legislation - in other words, Senft and the GFO need to be reminded that "people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones".
Stephen Thompson, Clinton ON
When I heard Mr. Senft on the radio to-day it reminded me of a Ken Lewanza union rant and make noise and keep your job . For the record we had 3 different varities side by side .2 with neonics and one without. The non-neonic was 5% better yield , which I realize may be genetic but with a good rotation on clay-loam based soils I don't think we need neonics on all our seed
Sorry to burst your bubble but white beans and other beans almost always get leaf hopper pressure at least twice a season from surrounding cut hay crop . Without neonics used to plan on two applications Cygon before the beans puckered up from the leafhopper toxin and remained stunted all year long. Then there is those debilitating aphids on soybeans.
I can take you in season to dozens of well managed farms both conventional and organic who are able to successfully grow excellent grain, oil seed and colored beans and make a good living doing so, with out the use of NeoNic's Big ag has a lot of farmers brain washed and Grain Farmers of Ontario Organization should shame them self's for being sell outs to big Ag.
I have never seen a more useless organization in all of my life. Grain farmers of Ontario, are a joke, they are so out of touch with reality and have an attitude that has show time and time again that they only want what is good for them.
Without a proper crop rotation and no use of cover crops you are going to be dependent on chemicals, which over time cause more and more need for them.
Agriculture is in a sad state when I see how many farmers are brain washed by BIG AG and the Dog and Pony show that is Grain Farmers of Ontario.
Grain Farms of Ontario needs to stop telling the urban media that they represent all grain farmers that is bs, I am a grain farmer and i consider them to be the Anti Christ to my farming business.
Sean McGivern
Dare we ask what you claim the other coalition members are? And for the icing on the cake what do you consider the OFA is in all this?
I think most farmers can work with "big Ag", afterall most of the seed,fertilizer and spray salesmen are our neighbours and friends.They are the experts and certainly know the conditions and circumstances of using what and where,when it comes to pesticides.Statistics show that there is a demand and need for these products.
However how do you work with a sector that says reducing neonics by 80% is only a start ?
How do you work with the Enviromentalists like the Sierra club,the Dr Suzuki's out there and media fueled urban prespective that pesticides are 100% reason of bee deaths.They only look at science when it benifits them.
I find it all too convenient for the Beekeepers president to say that it would take a couple years for the "poisons to dissipate"..in other words he is ready to keep blaming bee deaths on neonics years after their reduction.
We have never used NeoNic's and I would put my corn up against any ones, plant it in April or early May and we only grow it once in 5 years on a field, no NeoNic's required.
There are some really useless organizations out there, the best way to see how valuable a farm organization is, is to see how many members it has if they have to pay to be a member,
I think organizations likes Beef Farms of Ontario, Grain Farmers of Ontario or Ontario Sheep would'nt be able to to fill a church basement with paid members, if farmers had to pay to be a member, because they bring almost zero value to the average farmer.
Over the past 3 years I had 2 issues i wanted to bring to my so called elected Grain Farmers of Ontario reps attention I called several times to Mr Henry Van Ankum, and out of the 6 or so phones messages I left he never once called me back, these people and their organizations only represent their own interests and those of the corporations you buy their support.
Sean McGivern
President of the PFO a paid membership organization
Very seldom does an EBR posting get defeated. Been there done that! This is not based on all the science out there folks, it is based on the flavour of the day politics. Best case is it can be amended. So now what? From the article it is very clear that Neonics is simply the tip of the iceburg. All insecticides, herbicides and fungicides are on the slippery slope list. Then there is the unspoken antibiotics hit list.
The real kicker is there are some so called climate change experts at the government level who claim we should not even be growing corn. Do they think the USA would supply all our food needs including corn fed animal products? Or, perhaps they think we can all be vegetarians. Would that help eliminate some of the green in lake Erie?
This is just about neonics, no need to go into a speed wobble about everything else.
We farmed without them in the past.
The sun will still rise tommorow.
Raube Beuerman
Yep, and some people actually swallow the line, "We are from the government and we are here to help you".
Unless you are nihilist you will recognize the need for intervention on this issue.
Besides, as Mr. Thompson has already pointed out, famers sure do a lot of whining when legislation works against them(according to some), but you'll never hear a peep out of them when it works for them.
Raube Beuerman
We picked mustard out of fields and milked cows by hand.
Maybe the real forces behind the Neonics ban would have us go back there as well.
yes maybe we can get the supply management to help us maybe if they could give us free corn seed next year,,,then maybe next year when we need more corn give us more seed because if we plant 350000 seeds be acre we could sell the extra seed we don't plant and buy some more land so we don't have to pay the gov
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