The number of incidents involving bees and a controversial class of pesticides dropped significantly in 2014, says a new report from Health Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA).
“A complete analysis is not yet available, but information to date indicates the number of reports associated with neonicotinoid pesticide use during the planting period in 2014 is 70 per cent lower than in 2013,” the report reads.
The agency, though, was unable to determine whether new planting practices rolled out during the 2014 planting season were the main reason for the decline in reports. Cold weather, a chilly spring, and a late start to seeding likely played a role, too, the PMRA said.
The PMRA is the federal agency under Health Canada responsible for regulating pesticides and insecticides in Canada. The agency is currently reviewing the impact of neonicotinoids on pollinators. An interim report is expected in 2015.
Neonicotinoids are a popular class of seed treatments used to coat corn, soybean and canola seeds. Use of the pesticides, which are believed to be killing bees, is wide-spread with 95 per cent of corn acreages in Canada exposed to the chemicals.
While the PMRA’s report found a decline in the number of bee incidents, the agency noted an increase in the number of post-planting reports in 2013 and 2014. Seventy-two per cent of those post-planting incident reports in 2014, though, were made by three beekeepers, the PMRA said.
The PMRA has previously admitted the pesticides had contributed to bee deaths in Ontario and Quebec in 2012 and 2013 – a point repeated Tuesday.
Those incidents, though, were “limited to intense corn-growing regions in Southern Ontario, with fewer incidents in corn-growing regions of Quebec and Manitoba.” There have been no reports of problems with neonicotinoids use and pollinator health in Western Canada, where large amounts of neonicotinoid treated canola is planted each year, the agency said.
Those bee deaths, the report said, was blamed on contaminated dust generated during planting season. To mitigate that threat, the PMRA ordered changes to planting techniques for the 2014 planting season.
While industry anecdotes suggest the adjustments have been a huge success, the PMRA has not concluded its analysis of last year’s planting season. Those findings will be made public once complete.
The PMRA findings, released Tuesday, were published the same day the Ontario government announced it intends to reduce by 80 per cent the number of neonicotinoid treated corn and soybean acreages by 2017. The province also said it wants to implement new rules around the use of the chemicals by July 1, 2015 – in time for the 2016 planting season.
If approved, Ontario would become the first in North America to restrict the neonicotinoid use. The pesticide is already under a two-year moratorium in Europe – put in place in Spring 2013.
Restricting the pesticides is hotly contested by the province’s grain farmers, who said Tuesday they were “under attack” from the government. Farmers and the chemical companies insist the technology is essential to modern agriculture.
An 80 per cent reduction over two years simply isn’t plausible, Mark Brock, a director with Grain Farmers of Ontario said in an interview late Tuesday. Non-neonicontinoid treated seed is not widely available, nor is it generally the best varieties, he explained.
The restrictions also risk putting Ontario grain farmers at a competitive disadvantage, he said, given their competitors – farmers in Quebec, Manitoba and the United States – will still have easy access to neonicotinoids.
The province also hasn’t said how it plans to impose the restriction, Brock said. Nor has it offered any explanation for who would be liable for crop failure because of pest damage previously prevented by treating the fields with neonicotinoids.
“I have two pages worth of questions about how this is going to work,” he said.
Tensions between grain farmers and the provincial government have been mounting in recent months – a strained relationship unlikely to improve given Tuesday’s developments.
In July, Ontario Agriculture Minister Jeff Leal said the province wanted to reduce the use of neonicotinoid pesticides by the 2015 planting season. The Grain Farmers of Ontario found out about the government’s plan via a story in the Globe and Mail.
The government would later backtrack on its initial proposal after farmers — including Brock — said they’d already purchased seed for next year’s crop.
Knowing the government was facing increased public pressure on the neonicotinoid file, Brock said the industry had told the government it was prepared to reduce its use of neonicotinoids by 20 per cent effective almost immediately, but provincial officials didn’t want to listen.
In a meeting last week with government officials – including Deputy Minister of Agriculture Deb Stark and Environment Minister Glen Murray – Brock said grain farmers were told their options were either a 100 per cent ban or an 80 per cent ban.
“They basically said ‘take your pick,'” he said. “They’d already made up their mind.”