EU countries fall in line with the ban on neonicotinoid seed dressings

Friday, May 1, 2015

It's election year in many European countries and public opinion has been heavily influenced by the great bee disaster. The result is almost certainly very bad news for neonicotinoids

by NORMAN DUNN

The European Union (EU) ban on three insecticide neonicotinoids is actually part of a two-year trial lasting until end of 2015. But it's election time in Europe and you'd be hard put to find a single politician who would risk easing the embargo, or dare suggest returning to the status quo out in the fields next year.

The ban was, of course, brought about by public concern over bee deaths almost everywhere in the northern hemisphere. Leaving aside the invective of the always-present intensive cropping opponents here, there's actually a growing climate of reasonableness between the badly damaged bee sector and crop scientists. The majority of countries quickly obeyed the EU line in banning neonicotinoid seed dressings. But most governments also agreed that foliar sprays of the substances were crucial to farmers and allowed their continued use.

Compromise remains almost tangible, although there are still plenty of farmer groups fighting on for complete acceptance of neonicotinoids. Support is dwindling, though. Facts point to some sort of connection with bee colony collapse disorder. Bee experts readily admit that the interactions are becoming increasingly complicated, also that the effects of pesticides on bee survival are increasingly subtle and long-term. Marco Lodesani, bee specialist with the Italian Agricultural Research Council (CRA), has long pointed out that the effects are accumulative and that all Italian trials point to improvements in bee health when neonicotinoids are stopped.

"If I was a betting man," a large-scale crop grower in Germany told me in March, "I would say there's a 65 per cent certainty that the current ban will continue into 2016 and thereafter. This is a real hot potato and it has come to the stage when every politician is aware of it."

Ironically, canola growers in central Europe (who mainly sow in autumn) appear to have mostly escaped the dire consequences predicted when seed dressing was banned. While the beetles lost no time in munching their way through huge expanses of the emerging crop after the sowing of unprotected seed, the fall stayed mild. Crops got plenty of recovery time and continued to grow right through to Christmas. Now, many growers are predicting a bumper crop. The crop gets further help in spring, where neonicotinoid foliage spraying is still permitted.

Those sowing canola in the spring have a harder time without seed dressing, a fact recognized by the Finnish government when it secured exceptional status for its farmers. Just as well: trials comparing crops from treated and untreated seed featured just seven per cent emergence for the untreated plants in one 50-acre trial.

With corn in Italy, neonicotinoid seed dressing was banned as long ago as 2008. Since then, scientists report encouraging recovery in bee populations, although foliar spraying with the same substances is allowed (high bee mortality is still reported after spraying).

And what has happened to corn yields in Italy since the ban? Nothing. The CRA's Marco Lodesani says average yield has not been affected. Breaking with monoculture and going back to rotations is a possible influence here, he suggests.

Bee populations may be recovering in Italy, but in neighbouring Austria catastrophe continues, despite Austria following the EU ban on neonicotinoid seed dressing. Colony collapse rate reached an estimated 20-30 per cent in many areas after the 2013-14 winter. The Austrians say mild weather allowed varroa mites to thrive and these continue to weaken hive populations.

Meanwhile, the effectiveness of pesticide bans in general is being question by the Austrian plant protection sector organization, IG Pflanzenschutz, which reckoned in 2014 that an estimated 10 per cent of plant protection substances (not counting seed dressings) used in Europe were illegal – black market sprays with banned ingredients and false labels. Even back in 2010-2011, tests of bees and their hives Europe-wide identified the presence of five forbidden pesticide substances, surely another scare story from the farming sector that politicians will be quick to use in election arguments. BF

Norman Dunn writes about European agriculture from Germany.