Flowers, not pesticides. Saving honey bees and the ecosystem from agrotoxics is possible, thanks to wildflowers. Strips of wild nature at the edges of crops can keep insects at bay and preserve crops, without poisons. Switzerland and Britain lead the eco-logical way.
Neonicotinoids and other agrotoxics, ecosystem and health
The scientific studies leave no room for doubt. Neonicotinoid pesticides destroy populations of ‘non-target’ insects-and other animal species, such as migratory birds. (1) The ecosystem does not stand a chance, and the harms of pesticide exposure to human health are just as well known now. Glyphosate and paraquat have already proven themselves, as before DDT, Agent Orange and atrazine.
The survival of bees is at risk, as shown in the largest research conducted through field experiments, published in Science in 2017. (2) And if Albert Einstein is credited with the tragic prophecy of the end of human life within four days of the disappearance of the last bee, entomologist McGregor is credited with a more concrete concept referenced, one-third of our food comes from the work of pollinating insects. (3)
‘Seed treatment with neonicotinoids has caused worldwide concern. We conducted extensive experiments to evaluate the effects of neonicotinoid-treated crops on three bee species in three countries (Hungary, Germany, and the United Kingdom). Canola sown in winter has been grown on a large scale both with seeds treated with neonicotinoids (clothianidin or thiamethoxam) and untreated seeds. For honey bees, we found negative (Hungary and UK) and positive (Germany) effects during flowering. In Hungary, the negative effects on honey bees (associated with clothianidin) lasted into the following winter, resulting in a reduction in colonies the following spring (with a 24 percent decline). In wild bees (Bombus terrestris and Osmia bicornis), reproduction was negatively correlated with neonicotinoid residues. These results indicate that neonicotinoids cause a reduced ability of bee species to establish new populations in the year following exposure‘(Country-specific effects of neonicotinoid pesticides on honey bees and wild bees, Abstract. Doi 10.1126/science.aaa1190)
The Special Rapporteur to the United Nations for the Right to Food, Hilal Ever, released a report with data updated to 2017 on the dangers of agrotoxics to human rights, health and the planet. With ‘
catastrophic impacts
‘ on workers in agriculture, consumers, and the natural resources essential to feed the supply chain.
The French Institute for Agricultural Research
, also in 2017, published in
Nature
a large study that showed that substantial reduction of pesticides in agriculture is not only possible, but also economical and effective. On this basis, the government program ‘
Ecophyto
‘ has set a target to reduce the use of agrotoxics by 50 percent, by 2018.
Switzerland, Flowering Habitats
Concern about the environmental damage caused by pesticides has grown rapidly, as we have seen, in recent years. And experience in the fields has shown how the presence of wildflowers at field margins can limit the migration of pests (such as hoverflies, wasps and ground beetles) into crops. With the additional effect of increasing yields.
The program ‘
100
wildflower strips
for beneficials
in practice‘ was activated in Switzerland, in 2015, under the auspices of ‘ecological compensation’ in designated biodiversity-promotion areas. Using flowers such as cornflower, coriander, buckwheat, poppy, and dill on strips of soil at the edge of grain crops.
The experiments showed that the density of the harmful leaf beetle on cereal leaves in fields planted with winter wheat decreased by between 40 and 53 percent without using any pesticides. With an overall reduction in damage to wheat plants (-61%).
England, Assist
The Assist(Achieving Sustainable Agricultural Systems) research program was launched in England in the fall of 2017, for an initial period of 5 years, with an allocation of £11 million. (5) On the initiative of the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, in partnership with the British Geological Survey and the Rothamated research center.
The aim of the research is to develop sustainable farming practices, protect soils with respect to extreme weather phenomena and reduce the impact of agriculture on the environment. The trial started on 15 large farms, in central and eastern England. By seeding wildflowers on strips of land 6 meters wide, 100 meters apart, crossing and bordering cultivated fields (occupying an area of 2 percent of the total area).
The flowers used-daisy, red clover, common centaury, wild carrot, and others-are spared from harvesting (GPS-guided) so that they provide shelter for insects on an ongoing basis. So that predators can attack aphids and other pests on rotational crop fields (winter wheat, canola, barley).
‘
There is undoubtedly room
for reducing pesticide use,’ Bill Parker — director of research at the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Council — told The Guardian. (6) But ‘a huge cultural change‘ is needed in agriculture, where pesticides are now used a priori, that is, regardless of concrete need.
Most of the research in agriculture after all ‘comes from agronomists linked to companies that make their money from selling pesticides’, Dr. Parker concludes, and there is thus ‘commercial pressure that tends to adopt a prophylactic approach.‘ With the added risk, we add, of the push toward the Franken-seed functional for the use of additional agrotoxics.
Dario Dongo
Notes
(1) See %3D%
(2) SEE http://science.sciencemag.org/content/356/6345/1393
(3) ‘It appears that perhaps one-third of our total diet is dependent, directly or indirectly, upon insect-pollinated plants.’ McGregor, S.E. on Insect pollination of cultivated crop plants, USDA, Agriculture Handbook 496, 1976
(5) Cf. http://assist.ceh.ac.uk/
Dario Dongo, lawyer and journalist, PhD in international food law, founder of WIISE (FARE - GIFT - Food Times) and Égalité.