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

[John Purdy]

The speculation about increased use of neonics and the innuendo that this
could increase risk to pollinators is not the stuff of science or
agro-economics.  The concept that nearly all corn and Soybeans planted in
North America is already treated with these products makes it hard to
understand how the use rates could increase.  These products have been on
the market a long time and will be ending their market life cycle due to
newer products and improvements in non chemical methods of control.  It is
likely that the use of these products will decline.

On the other hand, the Australian Government has proposed regulating and
licensing beekeepers. I think this is a good idea. Beekeepers have been
left out of agricultural regulations for too long and should be brought up
to the same standards that apply to other agriculture. If bees are vital to
survival of the plant, why are they not regulated and licensed? There are
beekeepers who use no effective recognized disease control.(chemical or
nonchemical). These are no more than disease breeders. Nearly all in-hive
pesticides are applied preventively by those who do apply treatments. One
could say "If this is bad, its bad for beekeepers too", but i don't think
its bad. It leads to an order of magnitude reduction in overall pesticide
use and imporves yield per acre and per dollar of input..It should be
regulated better to avoid misuse and development of resistance.



On Thu, Apr 2, 2015 at 4:55 PM, Clement Kent <clementfkent at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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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>
>


-- 
John Purdy PhD
Environmental Scientist
Abacus Consulting Services Ltd
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