Why Neonicotinoids Need to Stay Banned — Permanently

In January 2021, the UK government approved the use of a neonicotinoid pesticide for emergency use as a seed treatment on sugar beet.

The announcement generated a huge amount of backlash from conservationists and citizens alike, and the decision was eventually overturned. However, in January 2022, DEFRA has once again approved this bee-killing pesticide for emergency use. The decision comes only days after a damning parliamentary report detailing the terrible state of English rivers, largely due to agricultural pollution.

So why is it imperative that the UK government upholds the ban on neonicotinoids?

Neonicotinoids — also known as neonics —are a class of insecticides which are chemically similar to nicotine. Like nicotine, neonicotinoids bind to specific receptors in the central nervous system, disrupting normal brain function. In insects, neonics overstimulate and block those receptors, ultimately leading to paralysis and death. However, although neonics were developed to target crop-destroying insects, an increasing body of scientific evidence has shown that the widespread use of these pesticides has severe negative effects on non-target species — including bees.

In 2018, member states of the European Union agreed on a total ban of the three most commonly used neonicotinoid pesticides for outdoor agricultural use. The UK — a member of the European Union at the time — supported the ban. Michael Gove, who was Environment Secretary at the time, stated:

 

'The weight of evidence now shows the risks neonicotinoids pose to our environment, particularly to the bees and other pollinators which play such a key part in our £100bn food industry, is greater than previously understood. […] We cannot afford to put our pollinator populations at risk.'

Indeed, multiple scientific studies have proven that even tiny quantities of neonics have multiple negative effects on bees, including reduced immune function, reduced foraging capabilities, and impaired cognition. What's more, these chemicals are rarely used in isolation, and a recent meta-analysis found that agrochemicals (including pesticides) interact synergistically to create an effect which is greater than the sum of its parts. This means that pesticides actually become more harmful when they come into contact with one another.

Aside from their impact on pollinators and other non-target invertebrates, neonics also create a cascading impact on food webs. For example, in areas where insecticide use is high, there are fewer insects for birds to eat and this is causing declines in insectivorous bird numbers. Furthermore, traces of neonics have been identified in soils up to five years after initial use. These chemicals are so widespread that it is impossible to accurately measure the scale of their impact on ecosystems. As a result of all this evidence, the European Food Standards Agency concluded that there was no safe use for neonicotinoids.

Despite all of this evidence against neonics, as well as the UK government's support of the 2018 ban, DEFRA has approved the emergency use of a neonicotinoid pesticide on sugar beet crops in England for the second year in a row. What is their justification for this decision?

Since the 2018 ban on the use of neonicotinoids for outdoor agricultural use, the rate of beet yellows has increased year on year. Beet yellows is a virus transmitted by aphids which impacts sugar beet yields. Due to increasingly mild winters, aphid populations are proliferating without frosts or neonicotinoids to control their numbers. The proposed emergency authorisation of thiamethoxam (one of the three banned neonics) would allow farmers to treat seeds to prevent beet yellows in the event of mild weather. DEFRA argues that, because sugar beet does not flower and will not attract pollinators, the risk from the use of this neonicotinoid is acceptable.

This is simply not true. Although the government states that the neonic will be used in a 'limited and controlled' way, this does not justify the untold risk to ecosystems that this will cause. Only days before this emergency authorisation was announced, a parliamentary report detailed how agricultural pollution is the biggest driver behind the contamination of rivers and freshwater ecosystems in the UK. The report described how pesticides and other agricultural chemicals are running into rivers, interacting with one another to create a toxic 'chemical cocktail' which is harming freshwater plants, invertebrates, and animals. Indeed, freshwater species are going extinct more rapidly than terrestrial or marine species globally.

Additionally, while it is true that sugar beet doesn’t flower, wildflowers and flowering hedgerows around sugar beet fields will certainly come into contact with these neonics, therefore exposing pollinators and other organisms to their harmful effects. To counter this, DEFRA proposes 'herbicide programmes to minimise flowering weeds and reduce the risk of indirect exposure of pollinators'. In essence, they are going to kill surrounding plants with weed killer! Not only does this remove a vital food source for many species, but it introduces yet more harmful agrochemicals into the soil and waterways, creating the aforementioned 'chemical cocktail' which will harm countless species across our ecosystems.

Finally, when I posted about this issue last year, I said that this would be the start of a vicious cycle. As climate change progresses, mild winters will become more frequent, resulting in the need for more and more pesticides to combat growing pest problems. Last year, I said it wouldn't be the last time neonics were authorised for emergency use — and here we are again a year later! If emergency authorisation is approved every year, the ban on neonicotinoid use effectively becomes void.

For the sake of our ecosystems and our economy, we cannot allow this to become the norm. It took decades of scientific research to get these pesticides banned, but they may now be used every winter to save a crop with no nutritional value. Inevitably, it won't end with sugar beet crops, either.

The emergency authorisation for the use of neonicotinoids is completely at odds with the government's own environmental targets. Unless the government gets serious about its approach to climate change and the biodiversity crisis, mild winters are something we’re going to have to learn to live with. Even without the weight of scientific evidence condemning the use of neonics, common sense dictates that throwing harmful chemicals at the problem is never going to solve it.

So how do we solve this problem? Well, an ideal first step is ensuring that these toxic chemicals will never enter our ecosystems again.