NEONICS - THE EU-BANNED PESTICIDE THAT ENGLAND NEARLY LET BACK IN

Illustration by Rachael Amber, creator of Cycles Journal. Find her on Instagram: @rachael.amber & @cyclesjournal

I’ve spoken about the importance of bees before and I’m sure you are well aware of how important they are to our food economy, but when it comes to protecting pollinators, we’re still not all on the same page. I was concerned when I saw the media coverage and several social media campaigns about the pesticide neonics, specifically neonicotinoid thiamethoxam, and how post Brexit, this EU-banned pesticide was to be given temporary approved use on sugar beet crops in the UK. At a time when public attention was diverted and focused on one big topic in particular, this news had unfortunately gone under the radar. Luckily, the decision was reversed last week — but that doesn’t mean that we’re off the hook. Harmful pesticides are still widely used and, when profits are put before planet, who’s to say when another dangerous chemical will be re-approved for use on our crops?

Pesticides, and government regulations when it comes to pesticides, can be a minefield to navigate but it’s something we should also try to be aware of, so I wanted to use my platform to help raise awareness for this news. I reached out to Catherine Chong, a climate economist and global sustainability advisor, to help us really understand what’s at play and find out more about what these chemicals can do to our food, ecosystems and health, but also what we can do as individuals before it’s too late. Catherine has written a fairly in-depth but very user-friendly guide to help us understand the ecological and social implications of this issue, but if nitty-gritty details are not your thing but you still want to help, scroll to the bottom for live petitions and long-term solutions. If you have the time, please add your voice to some campaigns that can be effective in stopping something that will eventually affect us and certainly this planet for generations. Do also follow Catherine @so_klim to find out the latest environmental concerns and how you can lend your voice and support.

WHAT ARE NEONICS?

Neonicotinoids, also known as neonics, are a class of pesticide. Broadly speaking, there are two categories of pesticides: contact and systemic. Contact pesticides remain on the surface of the treated parts of plants. Systemic pesticides are taken up and transported throughout the plant – the flowers, leaves, roots, stems, pollens and nectars. Neonics are systemic pesticides.

Neonics were introduced in the 1990s and have been produced and used on a large scale globally on arable and horticultural crops. By 2013, the same year the European Union started to restrict the use of three types of neonics, almost all corn planted in the United States was treated with a type of neonics. Neonics are still the main class of insecticides used to treat food crops and seeds in many parts of the world, representing billions of dollars of sales, strolling behind other highly hazardous pesticides like paraquat, glyphosate, glufosinate, cyproconazole and many more.

HOW HARMFUL ARE NEONICS TO THE ECOSYSTEMS?

Wildbees

Neonics have lethal and sub-lethal effects on “pests” and the nontargets — beneficial insects like bees. It is chosen as an “effective” insecticide as it attacks the central nervous system of insects, leading to paralysis or death.

Bees provide us with free pollinating services. But they are not the only “free” pollinators. Ten and thousands of species of wild insects like butterflies, flies, wasps, moth and beetles make up the important pollinating groups that we might have taken for granted and are adversely affected by neonics.

Bees have been given particular attention when it comes to the effects of insecticide, not only because of their important links to annual global food production, but also because as they represent the group of beneficial insects that recover slowly from contact with insecticide. Bees are unable to reproduce rapidly or in great numbers, which makes them more vulnerable to local colony collapse or extinction. For instance, it can take up to four years for bumblebee populations to return to pre-pesticide application level. But they are not the only “free” pollinators. Ten and thousands of species of wild insects like butterflies, flies, wasps, moth and beetles make up the important pollinating groups that we might have taken for granted and are adversely affected by neonics.

The toxins affect other living organisms across a food chain

When neonics were introduced, they were marketed as low toxicity hence low risk to mammals. Yet, a wide range of studies have found that the decline in some aerial, terrestrial and marine biodiversity are linked to the use of neonics. This is because neonics like all systemic pesticides are environmental contaminants and they creep into the food chains.

Animals and human could breathe in the pesticides and consume plants, fruits and seeds that have been treated by these pesticides or the residues that have found its way into (other) plants, honey, water and so on.

Broadly speaking, the neurotoxins in neonics can damage the tissues of almost every life form. The smaller the life form, the more vulnerable it is. For instance, one research has found that one teaspoon of it could kill up to 1.25 billion honeybees — that would fill up four large lorries. The consumption of just a few seeds that have been treated with neonics is enough to cause long-term damage to a number of birds' reproduction and development.

When animals consume smaller organisms that have been exposed to pesticides, the toxic compounds in pesticides tend to accumulate in the bodies of the larger animals over time. This toxin build up in a food chain is known as bioaccumulation and the increased concentration of a toxic chemical higher on a food chain is known as biomagnification. This means that chemical pesticides deemed safe to mammals could lead to sublethal and lethal effects in animals and humans. 

The toxins affect local and farther ecosystem and ecosystem services

Systemic pesticides like neonics can persist in soils for many years and can also travel long distances through the air and accumulate elsewhere. Migratory pollinators, such as bats and hummingbirds, take the neurotoxins with them to hundreds and thousands of miles away. That means that neonics affect many habitats and living creatures through multiple channels and at locations far away from where they were used. The (toxin) runoff to marine environments have been found to cause a rapid decline in the population of arthropods which in turn causes fishery collapse, in a number of places around the world. 

Like wild bees, many of these animals and habitats affected by neonics are intricately linked to human life and health. They provide what environmental economists call “ecosystem services” to humanity. There are four major categories of ecosystem services: provisioning, regulating, cultural and supporting services. For instance, wild bees proffer provisioning, regulating and cultural services — they are the crucial enablers of highly nutritional food and medicine such as honey, propolis and royal jelly; they are effective pollinators as discussed above; and they are important to cultural development in many communities — think of the beautiful books, illustrations, poetries, songs about bees, all things that make our life ever richer.

It is incredibly important to appreciate that certain living organisms are identified by scientists as the indicators of ecosystem health. For example the earthworm and microbial populations in soil can be a helpful indicator of agriculture-food ecosystems' health. This is one of the reasons for some research on pesticide (or any drivers of environmental hazard) focuses on a certain animal or habitat.

THE BANNING OF NEONICS IN THE EU

In 2018, the European Union introduced a total ban on the outdoor use of three neonics: clothianidin, imidacloprid and thiamethoxam. The ban applies to all agricultural applications except in closed greenhouses, as the main scientific basis for the ban relates to the hazards to wild bees. It is important to appreciate that this law did not come about overnight; it is a result of years of research and campaigning by scientists, wildlife interest groups, policy makers and other stakeholders. 

As the UK Brexit 11-month UK transition period ended just a few months ago, it’s still unclear how many EU environmental rules will continue to apply to the UK. The expectation is that some of the rules will be maintained and some will change. The Environment Bill, which is still making its way through the UK Parliament, will set the new legal framework for matters relating to environmental concerns in the UK. 

"Limited and controlled use” on sugar beet in England this year

In January this year, the UK government announced the decision to grant an application for emergency authorisation to allow sugar beet growers in England to use an insecticide containing neonicotinoid thiamethoxam for the treatment of sugar beet seed in 2021. The intention was to prevent virus yellows, a disease that has historically affected sugar beet yield in England.

The UK government’s decision to allow the use of neonicotinoid thiamethoxam was premised on the arguments that it will be “temporary” and that sugar beet is a non-flowering crop. Therefore the risks to bees were assessed to be acceptable. Many in the campaigning and scientific communities disagree and campaigned for the reversal of the derogation. So did I, as the ecological and socio-economic impacts from the use of neonicotinoid thiamethoxam and the likes of it are highly hazardous and costly to our ecosystems, and alternative solutions are available.

A few days ago, the government announced a u-turn - the derogation has been cancelled. This u-turn is not a direct response to the public campaigns but instead a response to a change in a virus model which uses winter temperatures and population dynamics of aphid, the insect that are responsible for transmitting virus yellows into sugar beet crop. Due to colder weather observed in January and February this year, the recently updated model predicts a lower percentage of crops will be affected by the virus this year, compared to the previous model. Colder winter entails a delay in aphids’ flights and peak growth thus reducing the risk of virus yellows in beet crop this spring.

It is a great news when weather becomes the natural pesticide. But the concerns remain - the derogation of neonics remains possible and the continuous use of other systemic pesticides as alternatives. The current system allows and justifies the triggering of highly hazardous pesticide use, instead of dealing with the systemic problems associating with non-agroecological farming approaches. 

The elephant in the room: unsustainable farming practices

The large-scale use of systemic pesticides is directly linked to industrial monocultures - growing one type of crop at one time on a specific field in a large scale. The logic is actually pretty simple. When a certain type of insect finds a crop that it particularly likes, and there is a lot of it, the insects thrive. They don’t have to bother themselves with other plants that might put them off. There are of course many other socio-ecological benefits to plant diversity, but we won’t discuss them here. 

Farmers, particularly small-scale farmers, shoulder disproportionate amounts of environmental and social risks. So regulations and governmental policies should support farmers as well as the broader public. The re-introduction of neurotoxic pesticides like neonicotinoid thiamethoxam, as a temporary solution to sugar beet crop failures this year would have caused a bigger and longer ecological and human health hazard. Governments need to find alternative ways to address and support crop failures.

WHAT WE CAN DO

It took almost a decade to push for the EU banning of just a handful of neurotoxic pesticides. We have seen a number of temporary allowances of neonics in the EU in the last two years. They are almost always lead by the companies that produced them. There is a worry of deregulation of neurotoxic pesticides post-Brexit, when as a nation, we should be tightening up environmental and social standards.

Petitions

So what can the members of the public do? There are a number of campaigns which urge the UK government to stop the use of neonics and pesticides broadly. Here are some of the petitions you can support:

Friends of Earth - Shape the Future of Our Countryside

Greenpeace - Enforce a total ban on bee-killing pesticides 

Sum of Us - Tell the UK Gov: Don't cut lifeline to bees and other pollinators

Support agroecology

Agroecology is a farming approach that attempts to understand and improve the relationships between plants, animals, people, and the wider ecosystems. It is a scientific discipline as well as a social movement, where the linkages and feedback between social and ecological systems are fed into a continuous learning cycle.

In fact farmers and researchers have found nature-friendly/agroecological alternatives to most agricultural applications of chemical pesticides. Some of the most promising alternatives include farming practices that are designed to conserve biological control through the use of microbes. There are also other biological, physical and non-toxic semiochemical practices that have shown high efficacy, applicability and practicality. 

Our agriculture-food systems need positive disruption. We need not one, but many, different types of alternative solutions that will fundamentally change not just how we view, pay and consume food, but how as a society we organise and regenerate the scarce natural resources we have been taking for granted. This requires many socioeconomic changes pursued by various stakeholders across our agriculture-food systems — farmers, landowners, scientists, policy makers, investors, wholesalers, retailers, restaurateurs, chefs, cooks, and not least, consumers, to support large-scale transitioning into agroecology.

As a starting point, you could support nature-friendly farming communities by buying produce farmed in agroecological manners and support social and business initiatives that contribute towards the socioeconomic sustainability and regeneration of agroecology. Join the growing community at www.instagram.com/farmstofeedus to learn more about the different stakeholders and the exciting initiatives in agroecology.

This article was written by Dr. Catherine Chong, a global sustainability advisor in the ecological, social and governance (ESG) field. Her experience includes managing global impact investing funds and developing industry, national and global sustainability standards in the public and private sectors. She is also the co-founder of Farms to Feed Us CIC. She can be reached at catherine@linkesg.com and www.instagram.com/so_klim