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Monday, October 20th, 2014

EPA: Bee-killing pesticides used on soy crops don’t even do what they’re supposed to

Author:     Lindsay Abrams
Source:     Salon
Publication Date:     Friday, Oct 17, 2014 11:56 AM PDT
 Link: EPA: Bee-killing pesticides used on soy crops don’t even do what they’re supposed to
Stephan:   I don't know how much clearer you could make the corruption of the federal regulatory agencies than the continued allowance of toxins that even on their own terms of what they are supposed to do don't work. And they are killing the Earth and the farmers who handle them. But they are oh so profitable. When I was growing up people used to talk about "banana republics." It was a term of great derision and scorn. We are now a banana republic on a vastly greater scale.
Credit: Protasov AN via Shutterstock

Credit: Protasov AN via Shutterstock

The EPA has yet to do much about neonicotinoids, the class of pesticides implicated in the United States’ mass bee die-offs, but it has started looking into them. And the results of an extensive review into one such pesticide, commonly applied to soybean seeds, presents another compelling reason to ban them: using them, the agency found, isn’t any better than using no pesticides at all. (emphasis added)

“These seed treatments provide negligible overall benefits to soybean production in most situations,” the report concludes; at most, they up revenue by $6, or less than 2 percent, per acre, but the more likely estimate is $0. Part of the problem is that the insecticides are only effective within the first few weeks of planting, while the insects they’re intended to combat aren’t typically active during that time. And if attacks do occur, the study identified a whole assortment of other, non-bee-killing alternatives that are both effective and comparable in cost.

Colony collapse disorder, on the other hand, has cost the […]

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1 Comment

  1. Rev. Dean Rose (Earth's protector) on Monday, October 20, 2014 at 4:34 am

    The EPA are the ones who need the political and moral clout and maybe even the militarized weapons the police now use to put these eco-terrorists out of business before they kill the human race. It is time to fight in the streets and in congress to regulate and eliminate these bee killers.