n The Neonic Ban: A Scientific Fraud Becomes Enshrined In EU Regulatory Law, I described the many elements of corruption that led to Europe’s recently announced ban on neonic insecticides (“neonics”) which is based on the fallacy that they are responsible for a supposed collapse in bee populations. In fact, bee...

Glyphosate, neonicotinoids, drinking water initiative – renouncing pesticides is currently the subject of fierce discussion. For while on the one hand our nutrition system cannot function without crop protection, especially pesticides carry undisputed risks for humans and the environment. ... I believe we have no option but to significantly reduce...

ive years after the European Union imposed a temporary ban on neonicotinoid pesticides, an “experts committee” of the member states has now finally voted to make the ban permanent. This was hardly a surprise. The vote followed shortly after the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) published their advisory opinion that...

Glyphosate is a herbicide, in other words, it is toxic to plants. Its target enzyme is not found in insects or other animals, so it is generally not very harmful to them – and as confirmed by a recent study, even direct sprays are not lethal to bees. his is what I said about...

In a study published today in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, researchers at the University of California, Riverside found that environmental threats are piling onto the stress faced by nest-building bumblebee queens. Led by Hollis Woodard, an assistant professor of entomology, the team found that exposure to a widely used...

Some politicians spoke “loudly” against glyphosate, the world’s most commonly used weedkiller, before their elections but came back to reality later on, EU Commissioner for Health and Food Safety Vytenis Andriukaitis told EURACTIV.com in an interview. Some politicians spoke loudly before the election proposing to immediately ban glyphosate, but after the election,...

Welp, this is the end of Monsanto. Not the end of the seed company, mind you, but the end of its name. The scientists, marketers, and lawyers who work there will keep doing their jobs, they’ll just be employed by Bayer, the big German chemical and pharmaceuticals company that’s slowly...

The fate of two neonicotinoid seed treatments, applied to almost all of the canola and corn seeds in Canada and a portion of the soybean seeds, will be decided this summer. For the last 18 months Health Canada has been studying neonicotinoid insecticides and assessing the risk to aquatic insects....

Following the partial neonicotinoid ban on flowering crops in 2013, the latest restriction which was voted on earlier this year, will prevent the use of three neonicotoids - clothianidin, imidacloprid and thiamethoxam – on all outdoor crops. ... In 2018, 99 per cent of UK sugar beet crops were protected...

Apart from the inherent scientific complexity, the glyphosate case illustrates a fundamental societal issue. The mere fact that the European Citizens' Initiative attracted so many adherents is indicative of a wide societal aversion to the massive increase in the production of chemicals and their use in pesticide-based agricultural mass production....

Continued applications of the most widely used insecticides in the world must be urgently restricted, say 233 scientists in a tightly argued letter published in the journal Science. The scientists, led by Davie Goulson from the University of Sussex in the UK, say that neonicotinoids – a family of neuro-active insecticides first developed...

Health Canada is sticking with its proposal to phase out most outdoor and agricultural uses of a common pesticide, even though a recent study found bees are only affected by the substance in certain circumstances. The recommendation comes the same day as more than 200 scientists published an open letter in...

Much to the dismay of anti-GMO activists, courts around the world including SCOTUS have consistently upheld the rights of companies to patent seeds--a practice going back to the first half of the 20th century when hybrid seeds were pioneered. Should that legal position be reconsidered?

Like my younger self, most Canadians are unaware of the vast diversity of bee species we have in Canada and are mostly familiar with the western honeybee (Apis mellifera), a non-native species introduced to Canada to provide a sweetener for early settlers. In fact, Canada has more than 800 species...

Beekeepers in the U.S. reported an increase in honeybee deaths over the last year, possibly the result of erratic weather patterns brought on by a changing climate, according to the scientist leading an annual survey on the insects. U.S. beekeepers said 40 percent of their hives, also called colonies, died...

Has GMO use really led to a “flood” of pesticide use, as critics contend? That’s not what the data show. The criticism that pesticides are a central environmental problem misses the big picture in agricultural sustainability and distracts from tackling global food insecurity.

This is part one of a four-part series attempting to separate fact from fiction regarding pesticide use on organic farms. In this installment, we look at the common claim that organic farms actually use more pesticides and more dangerous pesticides through the lens of a few simple observations and talking...

A top European Union court upheld on Thursday (17 May) the ban on three insecticides blamed for killing off bee populations, dismissing cases brought by chemicals giants Bayer and Syngenta. “The General Court confirms the validity of the restrictions introduced at EU level in 2013 against the insecticides clothianidin, thiamethoxam...

A committee under Union Ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF) has turned down commercial release of genetically modified mustard developed by Delhi University’s Centre for Genetic Manipulation of Crop Plants on grounds that more field trials are needed to ascertain its impact on honey bees, soil microbial diversity and honey....