permaculture

[Lawrence London <lfljvenaura@gmail.com>]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/08/31/france-first-ban-five-pesticides-killing-bees/

France becomes first country in Europe to ban all five pesticides killing
bees
France's new ban on pesticides will go further than those of the EU, in a
bid to protect the country's declining bee population  Credit: reuters
31 August 2018 • 4:15pm

France will take a radical step towards protecting its dwindling bee
population
<https://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/05/31/gardeners-fueling-bee-decline-by-using-weedkillers-and-pesticide/>on
Saturday by becoming the first country in Europe to ban all five pesticides
researchers believe are killing off the insects.

The move to ban the five so-called neonicotinoids has been hailed by
beekeepers and environmentalists, but cereal and sugar beet farmers warn it
could leave them all but defenceless in protecting valuable crops against
other harmful insects.

By enforcing the blanket ban, France is going further than the European
Union
<https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/04/27/european-countries-ban-bee-harming-pesticides/>,
which voted to outlaw the use of three neonicotinoids - clothianidin,
imidacloprid and thiamethoxam - in crop fields starting on December 19.

France has banned these three, along with thiacloprid and acetamiprid, not
only outdoors but in greenhouses too.
Initially opposed, Britain now backs the less comprehensive EU ban
<https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/11/09/uk-will-back-total-ban-bee-harmingpesticides-michael-gove-says/>
due to evidence supporting claims the chemicals contribute to “colony
collapse disorder”, a mysterious phenomenon that has seen bee populations
plummet
<https://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2018/08/28/bees-become-addicted-harmful-pesticides-scientists-warn/>
by up to 90 per cent in some cases. Other potential causes are mites,
viruses and fungi.
French farmers have said that the ban leaves them with no effective
alternative for protecting some crops from pests Credit: HILIPPE
HUGUEN/AFP/Getty Images

Introduced in the mid-1990s, synthetic neonicotinoids share the chemical
structure of nicotine and attack the central nervous system of insects.
Intended to replace older, more harmful pesticides, they are now the most
widely used to treat flowering crops, such as fruit trees, beets and
vineyards.

But scientific studies have shown that neonicotinoids cut bees’ sperm count
and scramble their memory and homing skills. Fresh research out this week
even suggests the bees can develop a dangerous addiction to the insecticides
<https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/10/20/keepers-warn-bee-mageddon-france-authorises-controversial-insecticide/>,
much like smokers for nicotine.

Some French farmers are angry, however, and say there is not enough
evidence that neonicotinoids are responsible for bee decline.

Farmers faced a “dramatic technical dead-end," said France’s biggest
farming union FNSEA, calling for exemptions in sectors "where there are no
alternatives or insufficient ones”.
Scientific studies show that neonicotinoids cut bees’ sperm count and
scramble their memory and homing skills, as well as being addictive  Credit:
FRED TANNEAU/AFP/Getty Images

The ban "will exacerbate unfair competition with European and non-European
producers" still allowed to use the pesticides, they warned.

A report by France's ANSES public health agency said in May there were
"sufficiently effective, and operational" alternatives to the majority of
neonicotinoids used in France.

Others believe the ban should go further.

“There are pesticides all over the place,” Fabien Van Hoecke, a beekeeper
in Saint-Aloué in Brittany, who lost 86 per cent of his bees over the
winter. While the ban was “a good thing, it won’t save us,” he told AFP,
predicting that as soon as they are withdrawn, they will be “replaced by
others”.
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Despite campaigns to reduce pesticides, France increased their use by 12
per cent between 2014 and 2016.

An upcoming French food safety bill, if adopted, will widen the ban to all
chemical substances that act in the same way.

The United Nations warned last year that 40 per cent of invertebrate
pollinators - particularly bees and butterflies - risk global extinction.