The United States should follow Europe's example and ban
pesticides that may be wiping out these key pollinators.
You may think that
your most significant interaction with bees is trying not to get stung. But, in
fact, you have bees to thank for nearly one-third of all food crops: almonds,
apples, peaches, honey, and watermelons, to name a few.
If our bees are in
trouble, then we’re in trouble too.
For years now, beekeepers in the United States and around the world have reported massive die-offs of honeybee colonies. Scientists aren’t completely certain about what’s poisoning the pollinators, but Europe has now decided to ban a class of pesticides that many experts blame for killing honeybees. We in America, on the other hand, are busy allowing farmers to use even more bee-killing pesticides.
Dead bees are one
thing. Colony collapse disorder is another. When it occurs, a hive’s entire
population disappears. No live bees — and no dead bees either. The bees are
just gone. Even stranger, no other bees enter the hive to steal the disappeared
bees’ honey.
I’ve followed this
story for many years.
It’s become a routine. Each year, I check in with several beekeepers and they
tell me tragic stories about dying bees and the collapse of their entire
industry. Each year, I’m also treated to more and more scandalous stories about
the U.S. government’s incompetent regulation of pesticides that kill bees.
Take, for example, a
pesticide called clothianidin. The government first allowed its use in 2003,
using a procedure called “conditional registration.” Those two vague words
mean: “Go ahead and sell the pesticide, and do the safety testing later.” Our
regulatory authorities told the manufacturer, Bayer, to get back to them in a
year or two on whether the pesticide harms bees.
In a series of leaked memos,
beekeepers discovered in 2010 that the study Bayer used to “prove” its product
doesn’t kill bees was what one beekeeper called “a mockery of
science.” But the government accepted the study, calling it
“scientifically sound.”
Europeans and their
bees have had similar troubles and they’ve also suspected neonicotinoid
pesticides are to blame. In a 2013 report, the European
Environment Agencychronicles a scandalous story showing how Bayer,
the manufacturer of a best-selling pesticide, initially failed to detect that
its product harmed bees.
Ultimately,
independent scientists found that the pollen and nectar of a pesticide-treated
plant contain 20 to 30 times more pesticide than it takes to kill a bee via
chronic exposure.
The federal government
just published its own report on
honeybee health, pointing the finger at numerous dangers: nutrition, parasites,
genetics, disease, and pesticides. This lines up with U.S. government’s usual
response to accusations of pesticide poisoning: There are many factors at play
so don’t blame the pesticides.
Yes, there are many
potential causes of colony collapse disorder, but it appears that
some pesticides, even at low doses, weaken bees, making them more susceptible
to parasites, diseases, and other dangers. Without exposure to certain
pesticides, the other factors probably wouldn’t be so deadly.
A few years from now,
after scientists study the results of Europe’s ban, we’ll know for sure whether
or not removing these pesticides from their environment will save our bees.
But it’s rather
foolhardy to wait so long, given the huge amount of evidence stacked up against
the pesticides and the importance of bees in growing our food.
OtherWords columnist
Jill Richardson is the author of Recipe for America: Why Our Food System Is Broken and
What We Can Do to Fix It. You can
read an interview
she conducted with Michael Pollan about his new book at
AlterNet.org. OtherWords.org
