http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/18/opinion/sunday/what-farm-to-table-got-wrong.html?smid=fb-share&_r=0
What Farm-to-Table Got Wrong
POCANTICO
HILLS, N.Y. — IT’S spring again. Hip deep in asparagus — and, soon
enough, tomatoes and zucchini — farm-to-table advocates finally have
something from the farm to put on the table.
The
crowds clamoring for just-dug produce at the farmers’ market and the
local food co-op suggest that this movement is no longer just a foodie
fad. Today, almost 80 percent of Americans say sustainability is a
priority when purchasing food. The promise of this kind of majority is
that eating local can reshape landscapes and drive lasting change.
Except
it hasn’t. More than a decade into the movement, the promise has fallen
short. For all its successes, farm-to-table has not, in any fundamental
way, reworked the economic and political forces that dictate how our
food is grown and raised. Big Food is getting bigger, not smaller. In
the last five years, we’ve lost nearly 100,000 farms (mostly midsize
ones). Today, 1.1 percent of farms in the United States account for
nearly 45 percent of farm revenues. Despite being farm-to-table’s
favorite targets, corn and soy account for more than 50 percent of our
harvested acres for the first time ever. Between 2006 and 2011, over a
million acres of native prairie were plowed up in the so-called Western
Corn Belt to make way for these two crops, the most rapid loss of
grasslands since we started using tractors to bust sod on the Great
Plains in the 1920s.
How do we make sense of this odd duality: a food revolution on one hand, an entrenched status quo on the other?
I
got a hint of the answer a few years ago, while standing in a field in
upstate New York. I was there because, many years before, I’d decided I
wanted local flour for my restaurants. I chose Lakeview Organic, a grain
farm operated by Klaas and Mary-Howell Martens. Klaas was growing a
rare variety of emmer wheat (also known as farro), nearly extinct but
for the efforts of a few farmers.
Milled
and baked into whole wheat bread, the emmer was a revelation —
intensely sweet and nutty. I spoke routinely about the importance of
local grain and the resurrection of lost flavors. I was waving the
farm-to-table flag and feeling pretty good about it, too.
Visiting Klaas those
years later, hoping to learn what made the emmer so delicious, I
realized I was missing the point entirely. The secret to great-tasting
wheat, Klaas told me, is that it’s not about the wheat. It’s about the
soil.
In fact, on a tour of
his farm, there was surprisingly little wheat to see. Instead, Klaas
showed me fields of less-coveted grains and legumes like millet, barley
and kidney beans, as well as cover crops like mustard and clover, all of
which he plants in meticulously planned rotations. The rotations
dictate the quality of the soil, which means they dictate the flavor of
the harvests as well. They are the recipe for his delicious emmer.
Each
planting in the sequence has a specific function. Klaas likes his field
rotations to begin with a cover crop like the mustard plant. Cover
crops are often grown to restore nutrients depleted from a previous
harvest. Plowed into the soil after maturity, mustard offers the added
benefit of reducing pest and disease problems for subsequent crops.
Next
Klaas will plant a legume, which does the neat trick of fixing
nitrogen: grabbing it from the atmosphere and storing it in the plant’s
roots. Soybeans are a good choice; or kidney beans, if the local
processor is paying enough to make it worth his while; or cowpeas, which
he harvests for animal feed. If there’s a dry spell, he’ll forgo beans
altogether and pop in some hardy millet. Oats or rye is next; rye builds
soil structure and suppresses weeds. Only then is Klaas’s soil locked
and loaded with the requisite fertility needed for his wheat.
As
much as I cling to tried and true recipes, Klaas doesn’t. Depending on
what the soil is telling him, he may roll out an entirely different
rotation. If there’s a buildup of fungal disease in the field, the next
season he’ll plant a brassica like cabbage or broccoli, followed by
buckwheat, and then barley. Barley is among Klaas’s favorite crops. In
addition to cleansing the soil of pathogens, it can be planted along
with a nitrogen fixer like clover, further benefiting the soil. Once
again, the soil is ready for wheat.
Standing
in Klaas’s fields, I saw how single-minded I had been. Yes, I was
creating a market for local emmer wheat, but I wasn’t doing anything to
support the recipe behind it. Championing Klaas’s wheat and only his
wheat was tantamount to treating his farm like a grocery store. I was
cherry-picking what I most wanted for my menu without supporting the
whole farm.
I am not the
only one. In celebrating the All-Stars of the farmers’ market —
asparagus, heirloom tomatoes, emmer wheat — farm-to-table advocates are
often guilty of ignoring a whole class of humbler crops that are
required to produce the most delicious food.
With
limited American demand for local millet, rye and barley, 70 percent of
Klaas’s harvest was going into livestock feed for chickens, pigs and
dairy cattle. In general, Klaas earned pennies on the dollar compared
with what he’d make selling his crops for human consumption. And we were
missing out as well, on nutritious foods that are staples of the best
cuisines in the world.
Diversifying
our diet to include more local grains and legumes is a delicious first
step to improving our food system. Millet and rye are an easy substitute
for rice or pasta. But that addresses only the low-hanging fruit of
Klaas’s farm. More challenging is to think about how to honor the other
underutilized parts of his rotations — classic cover crops like cowpeas
and mustard, which fertilize the soil to ensure healthy harvests in the
future.
Today, the best
farmers are tying up valuable real estate for long periods of time (in
an agonizingly short growing season) simply to benefit their soil.
Imagine if Macy’s reserved half of its shelf space at Christmas for
charitable donations. A noble idea. But profitable? Not so much. By
creating a market for these crops, we can provide more value for the
farmer and for our own diets, while supporting the long-term health of
the land.
In Klaas’s field, I
bent down and ripped off a green shoot of Austrian winter peas. I took a
bite. Inedible? No, delicious! Thirty acres of the most tender and
sweet pea shoots I’d ever tasted. (Harvesting the leaves would somewhat
reduce the amount plowed back into the soil, but the plant’s soil
benefits would remain.) In the distance I could make out a field of
mustards. Klaas plants Tilney mustard, similar to the spicy green you
find in a mesclun mix. I realized I wasn’t just looking at a cover crop.
I was looking at a salad bowl.
Back
at the restaurant, I created a new dish called “Rotation Risotto,” a
collection of all of Klaas’s lowly, soil-supporting grains and legumes,
cooked and presented in the manner of a classic risotto. I used a purée
of cowpea shoots and mustard greens to thicken the grains and replace
the starchiness of rice. As one waiter described the idea, it was a
“nose-to-tail approach to the farm” — an edible version of Klaas’s
farming strategy.
It’s
one thing for chefs to advocate cooking with the whole farm; it’s
another thing to make these uncelebrated crops staples in ordinary
kitchens. Bridging that divide will require a new network of regional
processors and distributors.
Take
beer, for example. The explosion in local microbreweries has meant a
demand for local barley malt. A new malting facility near Klaas’s farm
recently opened in response. He now earns 30 percent more selling barley
for malt than he did selling it for animal feed. For other farmers,
it’s a convincing incentive to diversify their grain crops.
Investing
in the right infrastructure means the difference between a farmer’s
growing crops for cows or for cafeterias. It will take the shape of more
local mills (for grains), canneries (for beans) and processors (for
greens). As heretical as this may sound, farm-to-table needs to embrace a
few more middlemen.
Perhaps
the problem with the farm-to-table movement is implicit in its name.
Imagining the food chain as a field on one end and a plate of food at
the other is not only reductive, it also puts us in the position of end
users. It’s a passive system — a grocery-aisle mentality — when really,
as cooks and eaters, we need to engage in the nuts and bolts of true
agricultural sustainability. Flavor can be our guide to reshaping our
diets, and our landscapes, from the ground up.
Dan Barber is the chef
and co-owner of the Blue Hill and Blue Hill at Stone Barns restaurants
and the author of the forthcoming book “The Third Plate: Field Notes on
the Future of Food.”
Bee researchers raise more warning flags about neonicotinoid pesticides
By Janet Thomson, CBC News Posted: May 20, 2014
This spring most Canadian corn and soybean growers will be
planting another crop of pesticide-coated seeds, even as researchers
raise new warnings that the practice may have deadly side effects for
bees and other wildlife.
The heated debate around the use of the neonicotinoid-coated seeds, developed by Bayer CropScience and introduced here about a decade ago, has divided farmers, beekeepers and scientists, and turned Canada into a kind of environmental battlefront.
To protect its bees, Europe banned the use of neonic pesticides last year, while U.S. authorities have so far taken a more cautious approach, saying these pesticides are just one possible factor in the collapse of so many bee colonies. Bayer filed a court challenge against the EU ban in August last year, saying the EU has wrongly linked the pesticide to bee deaths.
Bayer and Health Canada maintain that proper planting practices minimize the risk to bees, while others say use of neonics should be suspended until the questions being raised by researchers and beekeepers have been answered.
Over the past few years, neonicotinoids have become the dominant insecticide in everything from corn and canola to flea collars for pets.
But some believe this insecticide, particularly the version that coats the seeds and protects the plant as it matures, is responsible for the decline in honey bees.
When Health Canada tested dead bees last spring it found neonicotinoid on 70 per cent of them. At the time, it was thought the bees had become exposed to the dust that's kicked up during the planting process.
"Current agricultural practices related to the use of neonicotinoid-treated corn and soybean seed are not sustainable due to their impacts on bees and other pollinators," Health Canada then declared in a statement dated Sept. 13, 2013.
To address the dust concern, Health Canada's pesticide regulatory agency and the makers of the insecticide developed new best practices guidelines for farmers to go into effect this spring.
As part of the initiative, Bayer introduced a new lubricant that its lab tests suggest will help the treated corn seed flow through the planter, reducing total dust by 90 per cent and the active ingredient by 40 to 70 per cent.
Bayer told the CBC: "The new fluency agent has been shown to dramatically reduce dust when compared to the current industry standard lubricants."
But when the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food tested the new lubricant under field conditions, it found dust was still problematic. OMAF field crop entomologist Tracey Baute says, "the lubricant, the fluency agency, does reduce the amount of active ingredient in the dust by 21 per cent."
"We're still trying to determine if a balance can be made in the use of these products and protecting the pollinators," Baute adds.
Veteran Ontario beekeeper Tibor Szabo Jr. is not impressed. "A 21 per cent reduction of something that's very, very toxic isn't going to make me feel better," he says. "Do I think it's going to save the bees? Heck no.
"There's a heck of a lot more to this than dust."
Canadian environmental scientist Madeleine Chagnon has spent the past 20 years studying honey bees.
When she analyzed dead bees she discovered a bio-marker that suggested the bees had come into contact with neonicotinoids whether they had been exposed to planting dust or not. This suggests that they were exposed to the pesticide while collecting pollen from maturing plants, says Chagnon.
"They're taking in something that they will ultimately die from, and
they're taking this into the hive and feeding on it all winter, then we
wonder why we have winter mortality."
For Chagnon, this means no amount of dust-reducing agents, better communication or labelling will prevent what is happening to honey bees. She's pushing for neonic products to be banned.
The heated debate around the use of the neonicotinoid-coated seeds, developed by Bayer CropScience and introduced here about a decade ago, has divided farmers, beekeepers and scientists, and turned Canada into a kind of environmental battlefront.
To protect its bees, Europe banned the use of neonic pesticides last year, while U.S. authorities have so far taken a more cautious approach, saying these pesticides are just one possible factor in the collapse of so many bee colonies. Bayer filed a court challenge against the EU ban in August last year, saying the EU has wrongly linked the pesticide to bee deaths.
Bayer and Health Canada maintain that proper planting practices minimize the risk to bees, while others say use of neonics should be suspended until the questions being raised by researchers and beekeepers have been answered.
Over the past few years, neonicotinoids have become the dominant insecticide in everything from corn and canola to flea collars for pets.
But some believe this insecticide, particularly the version that coats the seeds and protects the plant as it matures, is responsible for the decline in honey bees.
When Health Canada tested dead bees last spring it found neonicotinoid on 70 per cent of them. At the time, it was thought the bees had become exposed to the dust that's kicked up during the planting process.
"Current agricultural practices related to the use of neonicotinoid-treated corn and soybean seed are not sustainable due to their impacts on bees and other pollinators," Health Canada then declared in a statement dated Sept. 13, 2013.
To address the dust concern, Health Canada's pesticide regulatory agency and the makers of the insecticide developed new best practices guidelines for farmers to go into effect this spring.
As part of the initiative, Bayer introduced a new lubricant that its lab tests suggest will help the treated corn seed flow through the planter, reducing total dust by 90 per cent and the active ingredient by 40 to 70 per cent.
Bayer told the CBC: "The new fluency agent has been shown to dramatically reduce dust when compared to the current industry standard lubricants."
But when the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food tested the new lubricant under field conditions, it found dust was still problematic. OMAF field crop entomologist Tracey Baute says, "the lubricant, the fluency agency, does reduce the amount of active ingredient in the dust by 21 per cent."
"We're still trying to determine if a balance can be made in the use of these products and protecting the pollinators," Baute adds.
Veteran Ontario beekeeper Tibor Szabo Jr. is not impressed. "A 21 per cent reduction of something that's very, very toxic isn't going to make me feel better," he says. "Do I think it's going to save the bees? Heck no.
"There's a heck of a lot more to this than dust."
New research
Indeed now some researchers are saying that dust from planting could be just part of a bigger issue with neonics.Canadian environmental scientist Madeleine Chagnon has spent the past 20 years studying honey bees.
When she analyzed dead bees she discovered a bio-marker that suggested the bees had come into contact with neonicotinoids whether they had been exposed to planting dust or not. This suggests that they were exposed to the pesticide while collecting pollen from maturing plants, says Chagnon.
University
of Quebec environmental scientist Madeleine Chagnon has been studying
the problems facing bee colonies for 20 years. (CBC)
For Chagnon, this means no amount of dust-reducing agents, better communication or labelling will prevent what is happening to honey bees. She's pushing for neonic products to be banned.
Other bee researchers have reached the same conclusion. Dutch toxicology consultant HenkTennekes told the CBC, "there is little doubt that neonicotinoids are implicated in bee decline."
And a new study by a Harvard University researcher and two Massachusetts' beekeepers, published earlier this month in the journal Bulletin of Insectology, also put the blame squarely on neonicotinoids for what has been called colony collapse disorder.
Tennekes's book The Systemic Insecticides: A Disaster in the Making has been compared to Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, which warned of the impending disaster of DDT in the environment in the 1960s.
"Even if Bayer were to succeed in reducing one route of exposure to virtually zero, many other routes of exposure are not affected," he said.
He suggests that the continued use of neonics will "cause a collapse of the ecosystem" because they create breaks in the natural food chain.
Not everyone agrees with these dire assessments.
Ernesto Guzman is one of the most respected bee researchers in Canada, and a world expert on pathology in honey bees. As head of the Honey Bee Research Centre at the University of Guelph, Guzman does not see pesticides as the main culprit.
Guzman says that bee mortality in the spring is caused in part by pesticides, as evidenced by Health Canada's spring mortality results of 2013. But he insists that whether or not systemic insecticides are the main threat to honey bee health is still debatable.
"Certainly pesticides are in fashion now and we hear a lot about
them, but other factors also have to do with colony mortality, such as
parasites like the Varroa mite," he says.
Guzman is not alone, either, in this assessment. The U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Environmental Protection Agency said last May, following a long study, that pesticides are just one of the many stressors contributing to the declining health of honey bees.
And there are scores of scientists who say neonics, when used properly, are safe for all non-target wildlife.
Seed supplier Steve Denys, a grain farmer and vice-president at Pride Seeds in Chatham, Ont., says that is one of the selling features: "Once the insecticide is in the ground there's no impact on the honey bees, and less impact on the environment than insecticides that are sprayed on crops."
But there is new research that indicates the insecticide may stay active in the soil and the groundwater.
During and shortly after spring planting last year, Laval University entomologist Valerie Fournier tested rainwater in cornfields. "Water samples, collected either in May or in June [2013], were shown to contain neonics in concentrations that are concerning for the bees," Fournier says.
She adds that insecticides in the water could cause "multiple sublethal effects" for bees, such as "impaired foraging behaviour, reduced food consumption, increased viral load and reduced fecundity and queen production."
A 2013 Dutch study from Utrecht University found that surface water collected from neonicotinoid-treated potato, horticultural and chicory fields "contained so much insecticide that it could actually be used directly as a lice-control pesticide."
Dutch researcher Jeroen Van der Sluijs says a bee drinking that water would die within a day.
Fournier notes that once a bee comes into contact with the insecticides, no matter the concentration, the effect is irreversible. The neonics bind with nerve cells and block their ability to function, which explains why some bees cannot find their way back into the hive.
She found that the pollen had been primarily collected from corn and soy beans.
When she tested the neonicotinoid levels in the pollen she found an average above five parts per billion.
While that is well below Health Canada's lethal dose benchmark of 38 pbb, beekeeper Tibor Szabo suggests that it is enough to contribute to chronic poisoning in honey bees.
Knowing that the corn pollen continues to express active pesticide well into the late summer shows the systemic nature of the neonicotinoids, Szabo says.
As the bees feed on the stored pollen all winter long, the pesticide causes a "delayed toxic effect in the beehives," he suggests.
"We're all still trying to learn more about the sublethal side of this", says Baute. "Chronic or sublethal, it's very hard to separate the two."
Though the concentrations are only in the parts per trillion range, under chronic exposure that would have toxic effects on sensitive aquatic invertebrates, she says.
"You should be aware that these compounds are much more toxic and are
in the water far longer than other insecticides used on the market,"
Morrissey says. "So they [bees] basically are being hit continuously
with the chemical."
However, Steve Denys, the Ontario seed supplier and corn farmer, says if researchers go looking for minute traces of just about anything they could find it. "I could probably find coffee residue from a Tim Horton's cup in the field if I looked hard enough for it", he says.
Virtually all of the 21 million acres of canola planted in Canada is neonicotinoid-treated, says Canola Council of Canada market access manager Brian Innes. But he says "there have been no reported problems of harm from neonics on pollinators in any of the fields."
Barry Brown, a Saskatchewan beekeeper whose hives are in a "sea of yellow" — meaning they are surrounded by canola fields — says he lost 23 per cent of his hives over the winter.
"We don't have the smoking gun, but I don't think he could actually say no bees have been harmed by neonics in Saskatchewan," Brown says about Innes's assertion.
Meanwhile, in a 32-square-kilometre area in central-east Saskatchewan, Morrissey says she found concentrations of the chemical three to four times higher than what has been deemed habitable for insects. Morrissey's water and sediment samples were collected from wetlands in agricultural fields.
"We're not talking about a little regional problem. We're talking about something that's happening over tens of millions of acres," she told CBC News. "The longer that the chemical is in the water, the longer the exposure time for the bugs."
She's not alone. In March 2013, former Environment Canada senior researcher Pierre Mineau, whose specialty is pesticide ecotoxicology, co-authored a paper for the American Bird Conservancy called, The Impact of the Nation's Most Widely Used Insecticides on Birds.
The main chemical compounds used in neonics are imidacloprid, clothianidin and thiamethoxam, and Mineau's findings show the chemicals stay on the seeds that are then eaten by birds.
The study found that a single kernel of imidacloprid-treated corn can kill small and "blue jay-sized birds," and sicken larger ones. It concluded that "imidacloprid is too acutely toxic to be used as a seed treatment insecticide on any seed type."
Third generation Ontario beekeeper Jim Coneybeare is among those
calling for a ban on the insecticides "as soon as possible, because
[otherwise] we are going to lose the bee-keeping industry."
But he is not optimistic this is going to happen.
"I think we're into neonics so deep … because chemical companies are making billions of dollars on the usage of these products."
Denys insists that the new seed technology is an improvement not only for farmers, but for the environment. "On my bean crop, before neonics, I used 100 times the amount of active ingredient to provide protection."
What's more, he says because farmers spend less time tilling their fields they burn fewer fossil fuels than before.
Health Canada shows no signs of pursuing a ban, and instead is working with the industry to try and find better ways to reduce the chances of exposing non-target insects to the pesticide.
A spokesperson recently told the CBC, "The [regulatory] agency is currently re-evaluating the neonicotinoid insecticides, which will include an examination of residues in the environment."
Bayer CropScience, the makers of the controversial seed coating, told the CBC that the company "will continue to promote better collaboration between farmers and beekeepers to improve bee health and ensure the adoption of best management practices."
Bayer adds that it is "committed to meaningful stewardship efforts to safeguard honey bee health and maintain sustainable agricultural practices."
And a new study by a Harvard University researcher and two Massachusetts' beekeepers, published earlier this month in the journal Bulletin of Insectology, also put the blame squarely on neonicotinoids for what has been called colony collapse disorder.
Tennekes's book The Systemic Insecticides: A Disaster in the Making has been compared to Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, which warned of the impending disaster of DDT in the environment in the 1960s.
"Even if Bayer were to succeed in reducing one route of exposure to virtually zero, many other routes of exposure are not affected," he said.
He suggests that the continued use of neonics will "cause a collapse of the ecosystem" because they create breaks in the natural food chain.
Not everyone agrees with these dire assessments.
Ernesto Guzman is one of the most respected bee researchers in Canada, and a world expert on pathology in honey bees. As head of the Honey Bee Research Centre at the University of Guelph, Guzman does not see pesticides as the main culprit.
Guzman says that bee mortality in the spring is caused in part by pesticides, as evidenced by Health Canada's spring mortality results of 2013. But he insists that whether or not systemic insecticides are the main threat to honey bee health is still debatable.
Ernesto
Guzman, head of the Honey Bee Research Centre at Guelph University,
says pesticides are not the main culprit when it comes to the mass
deaths of honey bees. (CBC)
Guzman is not alone, either, in this assessment. The U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Environmental Protection Agency said last May, following a long study, that pesticides are just one of the many stressors contributing to the declining health of honey bees.
And there are scores of scientists who say neonics, when used properly, are safe for all non-target wildlife.
Groundwater
It was thought that insecticide-treated seeds were less harmful to the environment because the pesticide is planted underground along with the seed.Seed supplier Steve Denys, a grain farmer and vice-president at Pride Seeds in Chatham, Ont., says that is one of the selling features: "Once the insecticide is in the ground there's no impact on the honey bees, and less impact on the environment than insecticides that are sprayed on crops."
Steve
Denys, a corn farmer and vice-president of Pride Seeds in Chatham,
Ont., says coated seeds are a huge improvement for the environment over
previous spraying practices. (Courtesy Steve Denys)
During and shortly after spring planting last year, Laval University entomologist Valerie Fournier tested rainwater in cornfields. "Water samples, collected either in May or in June [2013], were shown to contain neonics in concentrations that are concerning for the bees," Fournier says.
She adds that insecticides in the water could cause "multiple sublethal effects" for bees, such as "impaired foraging behaviour, reduced food consumption, increased viral load and reduced fecundity and queen production."
A 2013 Dutch study from Utrecht University found that surface water collected from neonicotinoid-treated potato, horticultural and chicory fields "contained so much insecticide that it could actually be used directly as a lice-control pesticide."
Dutch researcher Jeroen Van der Sluijs says a bee drinking that water would die within a day.
Fournier notes that once a bee comes into contact with the insecticides, no matter the concentration, the effect is irreversible. The neonics bind with nerve cells and block their ability to function, which explains why some bees cannot find their way back into the hive.
Systemic behaviour
Last July, in a study funded partially by the Grain Farmers of Ontario association, Baute took samples of pollen from foraging bees as they returned to their hives and as Ontario corn was starting to tassel.
Laval University entomologist Valerie Fournier is finding high concentrations of neonics in groundwater. (CBC)
When she tested the neonicotinoid levels in the pollen she found an average above five parts per billion.
While that is well below Health Canada's lethal dose benchmark of 38 pbb, beekeeper Tibor Szabo suggests that it is enough to contribute to chronic poisoning in honey bees.
Knowing that the corn pollen continues to express active pesticide well into the late summer shows the systemic nature of the neonicotinoids, Szabo says.
As the bees feed on the stored pollen all winter long, the pesticide causes a "delayed toxic effect in the beehives," he suggests.
"We're all still trying to learn more about the sublethal side of this", says Baute. "Chronic or sublethal, it's very hard to separate the two."
Trace amounts
University of Saskatchewan biologist Christy Morrissey studied the levels of neonics in Prairie wetlands and concluded that "upwards of 80 to 90 per cent of the wetlands adjacent to tens of millions of acres of neonicotinoid-treated canola are contaminated."Though the concentrations are only in the parts per trillion range, under chronic exposure that would have toxic effects on sensitive aquatic invertebrates, she says.
N.S.
apiary Scotian Bee Honey lost over 50 per cent of its hives this past
winter, 2013-14, primarily because of the cold, it said. (CBC)
However, Steve Denys, the Ontario seed supplier and corn farmer, says if researchers go looking for minute traces of just about anything they could find it. "I could probably find coffee residue from a Tim Horton's cup in the field if I looked hard enough for it", he says.
Virtually all of the 21 million acres of canola planted in Canada is neonicotinoid-treated, says Canola Council of Canada market access manager Brian Innes. But he says "there have been no reported problems of harm from neonics on pollinators in any of the fields."
Barry Brown, a Saskatchewan beekeeper whose hives are in a "sea of yellow" — meaning they are surrounded by canola fields — says he lost 23 per cent of his hives over the winter.
"We don't have the smoking gun, but I don't think he could actually say no bees have been harmed by neonics in Saskatchewan," Brown says about Innes's assertion.
Meanwhile, in a 32-square-kilometre area in central-east Saskatchewan, Morrissey says she found concentrations of the chemical three to four times higher than what has been deemed habitable for insects. Morrissey's water and sediment samples were collected from wetlands in agricultural fields.
"We're not talking about a little regional problem. We're talking about something that's happening over tens of millions of acres," she told CBC News. "The longer that the chemical is in the water, the longer the exposure time for the bugs."
Birds and amphibians
Based on her findings, Morrissey says she also suspects that further up the food chain there's an impact on birds. She concludes that there are potential consequences for wetland-dependent species such as amphibians, waterfowl and aerial insectivorous birds.She's not alone. In March 2013, former Environment Canada senior researcher Pierre Mineau, whose specialty is pesticide ecotoxicology, co-authored a paper for the American Bird Conservancy called, The Impact of the Nation's Most Widely Used Insecticides on Birds.
The main chemical compounds used in neonics are imidacloprid, clothianidin and thiamethoxam, and Mineau's findings show the chemicals stay on the seeds that are then eaten by birds.
The study found that a single kernel of imidacloprid-treated corn can kill small and "blue jay-sized birds," and sicken larger ones. It concluded that "imidacloprid is too acutely toxic to be used as a seed treatment insecticide on any seed type."
Ontario bee keeper Jim Coneybeare, one of the people calling for a ban on pesticides. (cbc)
But he is not optimistic this is going to happen.
"I think we're into neonics so deep … because chemical companies are making billions of dollars on the usage of these products."
Denys insists that the new seed technology is an improvement not only for farmers, but for the environment. "On my bean crop, before neonics, I used 100 times the amount of active ingredient to provide protection."
What's more, he says because farmers spend less time tilling their fields they burn fewer fossil fuels than before.
Health Canada shows no signs of pursuing a ban, and instead is working with the industry to try and find better ways to reduce the chances of exposing non-target insects to the pesticide.
A spokesperson recently told the CBC, "The [regulatory] agency is currently re-evaluating the neonicotinoid insecticides, which will include an examination of residues in the environment."
Bayer CropScience, the makers of the controversial seed coating, told the CBC that the company "will continue to promote better collaboration between farmers and beekeepers to improve bee health and ensure the adoption of best management practices."
Bayer adds that it is "committed to meaningful stewardship efforts to safeguard honey bee health and maintain sustainable agricultural practices."
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