[Pollinator] a useful new study quantifies neonic seed treatment use in the U.S.A.

[Clement Kent]

A paper from Margaret Douglas and John Tooker (tooker at psu.edu) of the Dept.
of Entomology of Pennsylvania State University has just been published
online in the journal Environmental Science and Technology (DOI:
10.1021/es506141g, http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es506141g?src=recsys).
Titled "*Large-Scale Deployment of Seed Treatments Has Driven Rapid
Increase in Use of Neonicotinoid Insecticides and Preemptive Pest
Management in U.S. Field Crops*", the article tabulates data from several
sources including some poorly known ones, from 1994 to 2011. The authors
highlight the fact that the major national pesticide survey run by NASS
(National Agricultural Statistics Service) does not monitor levels of
pesticides in seed treatments. They found alternative data sources from
which they calculated total neonic use in seed treatments and in other
treatments over this 19 year period.

Data from their Figure 1c shows that total neonic usage prior to 2004 never
exceed about 250,000 kilograms per year. In 2004 U.S. usage jumped to about
700,000 kilograms per year and rose steadily thereafter to approximately
2,300,000 kilograms/year on 2011.

Their Figure 2 shows that the percent of national maize (corn) crop treated
rose from near zero in 2003 to about 50% in 2005 and 85-90% in 2011.

Although their data does not extend past 2011, they note:

"If current trends continue, neonicotinoid use could increase
considerably further through use of seed treatments on
additional crop area (e.g., on soybeans or wheat), or through
higher per-seed application rates. In 2013, mid- or high-rate
products were apparently widely used and this year at least
one seed company has announced that its “standard” treatment
for maize seed will now include the highest labeled rate of NST
(1.25 mg ai/seed, five times the low rate)."

Thus the 2011 usage rates, even though much higher than 2004 rates, are
probably less than 2013-2014 usage rates.

Detailed numerical tables are published in their Supporting Information and
are freely available at http://pubs.acs.org/doi/suppl/10.1021/es506141g

This paper provides a valuable summary of neonic usage rates in the U.S.
which will help inform the debate over this category of pesticides. It also
emphasizes that there is a lacuna in the reporting methodology of some of
the major agricultural pesticide use surveys in that seed treatments are
being omitted.

Clement Kent
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