More chemical problems

[Patrick1]

I don’t suppose I am the only one who listened to this in the early hours on radio 4
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-58089545
I argued against banning neonicotinoids, not because I believe they do not damage our bees but because of isolating the chemical companies then not knowing what they are upto, it would have been more beneficial to work with them, get them on side, maybe have set up a working group. Maybe redesigning the product may have worked.

Now what we have is to play catchup, trying to work out what they will come up with next to kill our bees, we can tract this back just in my life time to things like DDT, we must surely learn at some stage that’s it better to talk, engage, some mutual respect.

 

[Wilco]

Read an article on the BBC site I think summarising it. Again the focus on honey bees not solitary bees and other pollinators but suppose they've got to start somewhere...

I'm pro banning them as neonics have a much longer half life than many other classes of pesticides, some persist up to 20 years. However, the whole licensing system is shocking. It's like with animal medications-- there is no requirement to research what happens to to product after it's gone through the animal. So all the pet endoparasiticide combinations, which are dished out willy nilly, there's no data on environmental contamination.

With increasing populations, globalism and the demand for cheap food pushing a need for monoculture, there will sadly remain a need for pesticides in food production for the foreseeable... More specific licensing/use exemptions are the way forward for farming. That's not going to fix the broken system though.

 

[Karol]

I don’t suppose I am the only one who listened to this in the early hours on radio 4
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-58089545
I argued against banning neonicotinoids, not because I believe they do not damage our bees but because of isolating the chemical companies then not knowing what they are upto, it would have been more beneficial to work with them, get them on side, maybe have set up a working group. Maybe redesigning the product may have worked.

Now what we have is to play catchup, trying to work out what they will come up with next to kill our bees, we can tract this back just in my life time to things like DDT, we must surely learn at some stage that’s it better to talk, engage, some mutual respect.

I argued strongly for banning neonics because of potency, prophylaxis, persistence, migration, solubility, non target environmental impact and because they are systemics meaning that we end up eating them and there is no direct safety data of the carcinogens produced when neonics in fruit and veg are for example cooked or roasted before consumption.

 

[Apiarisnt]

Dave Goulson (again) via the Grauniad (again): Ban all pesticides in UK gardens to save bees and insects, says expert