Cyclamens on sale at Home Depot. Credit: AWA/cc by 2.0

By Carey L. Biron
WASHINGTON, Aug 14 2013 (IPS)

Major U.S. retailers are selling garden plants that are billed as “bee-friendly” but laced with pesticides known to be toxic to bees, according to a preliminary study, the first on the issue, released Wednesday.

Researchers with Friends of the Earth U.S. and the Pesticide Research Institute say that more than half of the nursery plants studied contained residues of “neonicotinoid” pesticides, a substance increasingly thought to be contributing to mass die-offs of global honey bee populations."It turns out these systemics have major risks that EPA did not fully understand. Now the agency is in a defensive stance … It will be difficult to reel these products back in, but it can be done.” -- Peter Jenkins of the Centre for Food Safety

“At the levels observed in our report, the high percentage of contaminated plants and concentrations suggest this problem is widespread,” Lisa Archer, a co-author of the new report and director of Friends of the Earth U.S.’s food and technology programme, told IPS.

“Unfortunately, too many home gardeners have likely become a source of exposure to pesticides that have been shown to harm, weaken and kill bees. It’s pretty shocking that consumers who may be purchasing these plants specifically to help bees could in fact be poisoning them.”

Many others may share that shock. Also on Wednesday, these groups delivered a petition signed by some 175,000 people to major retailers, urging them to stop selling neonicotinoid-treated plants.

Following on a half-decade of mysteriously bad news, last winter was one of the worst on record for U.S. commercial bee populations, with beekeepers reporting mortality rates of 40 to 90 percent and the collapse of nearly a third of hives. Normal “over-wintering” mortality rates should be around 10 to 20 percent, experts say.

In the United States, around a third of the food supply (and two-thirds of food crops) is dependent on bee pollination. Broader ecosystems arguably have even more to lose, with some 80 percent of flowering plants relying on bees for their survival.

Neonicotinoids (or “neonics”) are known as a systemic pesticide, water-soluble substances that can travel throughout a crop via its roots, remaining within the plant for multiple seasons. Today, neonics make up the most common class of pesticide in the world, including treatments for nearly all commercially sown grains in the United States.

Yet a growing body of scientific evidence is suggesting that low levels of exposure to neonics could be making bee populations more vulnerable to a host of other problems, including parasites and a changing climate, or even simply making it through the winter months.

Sublethal doses

While scientists have increasingly focused on the potential impact of the agricultural use of neonics, Wednesday’s study is the first to try to gauge the use of these substances in home and industrial ornamental gardens. The report notes that “many of the seedlings and plants sold in nurseries and garden stores across the U.S. have been pre-treated with neonicotinoids at much higher doses than are used on farms.”

The study sample was very small, just 13 plants known to be highly appealing to pollinators, and the researchers are calling for more extensive research. The plants were purchased at three nationwide retailers in three areas of the United States and then analysed by an independent laboratory.

More than half the plants sampled were found with some level of neonic concentration, ranging from 11 to 1,500 microgrammes per kilogramme. Some plants were found to be carrying two or even three types of neonics.

While the lower levels of that spectrum would likely not kill bees, Archer notes that smaller amounts could have significant impact.

“Adverse effects are definitely possible even with lesser amounts, including impacting on bees’ fertility and ability to navigate, as has been proven in lab settings previously,” she says.

“Bees already have enough problems as it is, so our hope with this study is that retailers can now take action and lead on this issue, to ensure that consumers at least have access to neonic-free plants.”

Archer is unaware of the extent of knowledge within the nursery retail industry about the potential impact of neonics on bee populations, but says she’s willing to give companies the benefit of the doubt that they were unaware of the issue to date.

A spokesperson for Home Depot, a home services giant that operates some 2,250 stores, told IPS that his office hadn’t yet reviewed the new study. “But we certainly appreciate the importance of the bee population,” he said, “so we’ll be reaching out to the study groups to learn more.”

Lowe’s, another large-scale retailer included in the new study, did not respond to a request for comment by deadline.

Defensive regulators

Last month, U.S. lawmakers introduced national legislation aimed at taking emergency interim measures to safeguard U.S. beehives, after some 50,000 honey bees reportedly died following an ornamental application of neonic pesticide in a business parking lot. If passed, the bill would halt the use of neonics until the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) – the body that approved their use in the first place – undertakes a scheduled reappraisal of the pesticides in 2018.

“Twelve years ago, EPA became so enamoured with systemic insecticides that they approved hundreds of these products,” Peter Jenkins, an attorney with the Centre for Food Safety, an advocacy group that sued the EPA over the issue this spring, told IPS.

“But it turns out these systemics have major risks that EPA did not fully understand. Now the agency is in a defensive stance … It will be difficult to reel these products back in, but it can be done.”

While some suggest that conservative pushback could doom the currently pending pollinator legislation, Jenkins points to recent evidence of notably broad bipartisan support for such action.

A related provision would have passed the Republican-controlled House of Representatives earlier this year as part of a larger bill that ultimately failed, he says. In addition, the Republican-controlled House committee that oversees financial appropriations for the EPA is currently urging the agency to take related regulatory action.

To a great extent, global precedent on neonic use is currently coming from Europe. The European Union is slated to pass a two-year moratorium on the use of three types of neonics, pending additional research, while the majority of home garden retailers in the United Kingdom have already stopped selling neonic-treated plants.

“If retailers can do this in the U.K., they can do it here,” Friends of the Earth U.S.’s Archer says. “According to the American Gardening Association, more than 80 percent of consumers are interested in purchasing environmentally friendly products, so we’re hoping retailers will see this as an opportunity to be leaders in pollinator protection.”

Bumblebee pollinating Aquilegia vulgaris. Credit: Roo72/cc by 3.0

By Carey L. Biron
WASHINGTON, May 3 2013 (IPS)

A major study by the U.S. government’s environment and agriculture agencies has suggested a strong link between the use of certain pesticides and the widespread deaths that have afflicted honey bee populations around the world in recent years.

Still, the joint report, released Thursday, does not suggest limiting the use of these pesticides, nor does it recommend immediate action to impose a temporary ban, as was announced this week in a landmark decision by the European Union. Rather, the report offers technical tweaks while urging additional research on the issue."The five-to-ten-year timeframe these agencies are now saying they will follow is not fast enough." -- Pesticide Action Network's Paul Towers

“Acute and sublethal effects of pesticides on honey bees have been increasingly documented, and are a primary concern,” the report, released by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), states.

“Further … research is required to establish the risks associated with pesticide exposure to U.S. honey bee declines in general. The most pressing pesticide research questions lie in determining the actual field-relevant pesticide exposure bees receive and the effects of pervasive exposure to multiple pesticides on bee health and productivity of whole honey bee colonies.”

The report has also expanded official focus from one notorious family of pesticides – known as neonicotinoids (or “neonics”), the subject of the European Union’s new two-year moratorium – to a second, known as pyrethroids. Indeed, research within the report suggests that “the frequency and quantity of residues of pyrethroids coupled with the toxicity of these insecticides to bees could pose a 3-fold greater hazard to the colony than the systemic neonicotinoids.”

These are important findings in what remains a scientific mystery amidst an environmental and agricultural crisis. A half-dozen years after mass bee deaths were first noticed, last year was the worst yet on record, during which around half of all bees in U.S. commercial hives inexplicably disappeared.

Since 2006, the U.S. government estimates that 10 million bee hives have succumbed in the United States alone. Similar phenomena are being seen in European countries.

Beyond the potential environmental implications of what is being called Colony Collapse Disorder, major bee problems inevitably have major ramifications for agriculture. Government and other experts have put the annual value of bee-pollinated foods at nearly 20 billion dollars – making the new report’s findings increasingly urgent.

Great imperative

Despite the anticipation with which the report was being watched, the USDA and EPA ultimately state only that the findings are not yet conclusive enough to take major action.

The agencies note that pesticide use is one of several potentially interlinked factors that have contributed to the recent mass die-off. Other factors include abnormally high rates of bee parasites, poor nutrition among the insects, and a loss of genetic diversity among today’s hives.

“The report makes a compelling case that multiple factors are at play and that we do need to take action, but this needs to be done far more quickly,” Paul Towers, media director with the Pesticide Action Network, an advocacy group, told IPS.

“The five-to-ten-year timeframe these agencies are now saying they will follow is not fast enough. In fact, there is great imperative here: bees are a clear indicator of the overall health of our agricultural system, so if we’re unable to protect the pollinators we’ll put our entire agricultural system at risk.”

Further, consumer watchdogs say that multiple high-level studies in recent years have strengthened scientific consensus on the impact of pesticides on bee populations, with research suggesting these chemicals could act as a critical instigator among a combination of other factors. The weight of this evidence, they say, warrants a quicker response.

“We do need more research, and it is good that EPA and USDA are working together, but I do think we know enough now to act,” Jennifer Sass, a toxicologist with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a watchdog group here, told IPS.

“The Europe ban is based on good data, and there is increasing evidence to where we can get a pretty good understanding of the impact on bees. All of the actions being suggested in the new report are good, but in addition we need to severely ramp down the volume of chemicals we’re using – or stop using them entirely.”

Indeed, it is important to note that the European Union’s ban is actually just a two-year moratorium, to allow for additional scientific study to progress in the context of mounting evidence.

“The EPA is putting blinders on, pretending the main problem is pesticides ‘drifting away’ from the application site, pretending the actual seed treatments aren’t the problem,” NRDC’s Sass, who recently co-authored a study accusing the EPA of shoddy approvals procedures, says.

“This has allowed them to come up with technical solutions, focusing on how to reduce the amount of pesticides that are getting off the treatment sites, when really the issue is that the pesticide is getting into the plants – just as it’s meant to do.”

Further, some research has found that these substances may not be staying where they’re placed. A California study discovered that 80 percent of the state’s waterways were contaminated with pesticides, for instance, while the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) found similar traces in 60 percent of water samples in Georgia.

Lobby victory?

The EPA has recently stepped up a required review of all “neonic” pesticides currently allowed in the United States, but that too won’t take place until 2018.

“The agency has accelerated the schedule for registration review of the neonicotinoid pesticides due to uncertainties about these pesticides and their potential effects on bees,” the EPA told IPS.

“However, if at any time the EPA determines there are urgent human and/or environmental risks from pesticide exposures that require prompt attention, the agency will take appropriate regulatory action, regardless of the registration review status of that pesticide.”

The agency says it has “several hundred” studies on the effects of neonics on bees and bee colonies, but notes that “At this time, the data available to the EPA do not support a moratorium” such as the one recently instituted in the European Union.

In this decision, Sass sees evidence of the strength of the chemicals lobby. Two of the most prominent neonic producers, for instance, are the chemicals giants Bayer and Syngenta, evidence of whose lobbying in the European Union on the issue has recently been documented.

“These chemical makers are clearly the biggest lobbying voice in this discussion – bigger than the growers and way bigger than the beekeepers,” Sass says. “While the action in Europe will protect agriculture, the EPA’s action will simply protect corporate profits.”`