SAVE THE BEES
WITHOUT CUTTING HEADS.
On March 18,
the French members of parliament voted the ban of all insecticides from the
family of neonicotinoids, effective in September 2018.
The
parliament decided to cut a head to show it to the angry people. A symbol. By
this way, the parliament show it is listening to the people and act ... even in
spite of common sense.
The
execution of Louis XVI, a symbol more than a necessity.
It is still
interesting to note that this text was adopted by 51.7% of the vote, so a very
small majority of voters. It is especially interesting that the voters were 58
present for 577 members in the French National Assembly!!!
It's just a shame, a denial of
democracy. How can a text of law be adopted with only 5.2% of favorable vote?
They laugh
at the people!!!
A law, whose
consequences could be severe, is adopted because ladies and gentlemen members
of the parliament wanted to advance a few hours their Easter holidays. Get
serious, please. Why do you believe you are elected? To be absent from
Parliament? You are the people's
representatives, and it is your duty to be present. This is just a little
more abuse of power.
Let's
just hope that the Senate, which has yet to ratify the text, will look a little
more about the problem, and about the future of agriculture.
But that is
another question.
Let
us bend thus a little over the problem of those unfortunate bees, objects of
all economic, political and ideological greed.
I've already
talked about it last year, in an article entitled "Save the Bees" https://culturagriculture.blogspot.com.es/2015/06/45-save-bees.html
Forum Phyto,
a site which I have already mentioned and which you can access directly from
this blog, recently published an article on the subject, entitled "In
Canada, free seeds to bring back the bees' http://www.forumphyto.fr/en/2016/03/16/au-canada-des-sachets-de-graines-gratuits-pour-sauver-les-abeilles/
It refers to
a very interesting conference of a large bee specialist, Maria Spivak. It lasts
15 minutes, in English. I urge you to listen. I don't agree with everything she
says, but the consistency of her speech and the passion she puts into it
deserve respect.
Go ahead,
and meet me afterwards.
So, what
should we remember?
Several
key points on the multiple causes of mortality of bees.
The first point is the change in
cropping patterns
after the second world war. Crop rotations had, among others, the aim to
integrate legumes, plants that have the ability to fix nitrogen from the air,
so to enrich the soil when buried them as preparation for the next crop. The
massive use of nitrogen fertilizers has eliminated that need, and almost caused
the disappearance, at least partial, of this rotation, although other benefits
it brought, especially the presence of flowers, so a large tank for food for
bees.
Second, the widespread use of herbicides to
improve production, and the removal of vegetal soil cover, impoverishing the
biodiversity, aggravated the situation of lack of flowers.
The
combination of these two problems caused the
formation of agricultural food deserts, where bees can't survive, because
they are not able to feed from spring to the arrival of winter. Some very large
areas of the world are affected by this "food desertification", for
example in major grain producing areas.
Yet many
agricultural crops need bees. Current practices tend to travel beehives from one region to another to pollinate crops.
Many beekeepers are even specialized in pollination, because it is more cost
effective than honey.
Indeed, a
point Maria Spivak does not talk about, is the low profitability of honey
production. Yet it is important to talk about, because it is one of the causes
of the decrease in the number of beehives. Less
beekeepers, less beehives. And a lot of remaining beekeepers live from
pollination, honey constituting only a supplement to their income.
And
to pollinate, it's necessary to move beehives from one plot to another, from
one farm to another, or from one region to another. A single beehive can thus
make 3 or 4 pollinations a year, with trips there and back each time. But each
successive transport is traumatic and causes disorientation and significant
losses of bees.
Insecticides are one of the causes
of the bee decline problem, obviously. No one denies this, and farmers
are the first to be concerned, after beekeepers, of course. Neonicotinoids have
a peculiarity, they are systemic, meaning they are absorbed by the plant and
circulate by sap. As such, they present a specific danger: they can actually,
if the conditions of use are not appropriate, be found in the nectar. Now these
products even in very small quantities, have the property to reduce the ability
of bees to orientate, so to go back to the beehive.
But we must
relativize Maria Spivak speech. The use of pesticides is not responding to the
need to fight against pests, weeds and diseases that would not have existed
without intensive agriculture. This is only partially true. The real reason is
the need to produce more per hectare, to deal with several evolutions: the
considerably greater need of food because of the exponential increase in
population, and the stagnant or declining food prices (at least at farmer's
level), which obliges farmers to produce more to compensate for the drop in
income.
The coating of seeds, which she speaks about, had an enormous interest: the
insecticide diffusing into the plant, its internal action avoids the use of the
same insecticide or other one, potentially more dangerous, to infinitely higher
doses and by aerial spraying, so with the risk of more significant side
effects, including on bees.
But
this method is now prohibited and bee decline of bees has not been controlled
so far...
Another key
point in the bee decline phenomenon, is the
health problem of beehives, particularly with varroa attacks, a parasitic
mite, whose fight is difficult, but made possible especially by another
synthetic insecticide, called tau-fluvalinate. But we must also reckon with the
bacteria of American foulbrood and European foulbrood, also with many viruses,
and more recently the extension of its terrible predator, the Asian hornet.
Next, and
maybe especially, monoculture,
largely used in agriculture in some areas, and the progression of urbanization, have significantly reduced food
options of beehives. Bees are animals that must feed daily (really?). So they
need to find flowers to forage throughout their period of activity.
Poverty of biodiversity in some
cultivated areas, around cities, on the edge of roads or railways, further
increases food desert effect.
For a time,
in France, the state administration was helping farmers who chose to sow
flowery fallow. The rotation problems in crops, and especially the end of
compulsory fallow, so subsidized, made almost disappear this practice, yet so
beneficial for beehives.
I
would add one more point, perhaps not sufficiently highlighted, yet very
serious, and involving beekeepers themselves: the origin of bees. In many cases, queens are imported to increase
the productive capacity of the beehives. Their origin may be distant, sometimes
even from the southern hemisphere. But their adaptation to their new
environment and climate, can be difficult, especially if in addition there is
also a change of season, due to the change of hemisphere. You can read the
article in the Huffington Post (French edition) entitled "Bees victims of
pesticides? It's not so simple ... “ http://www.huffingtonpost.fr/2015/06/17/abeilles-victimes-pesticides-pas-aussi-simple_n_7604548.html
and the book it speaks of, written by the scientific journalist Vincent Tardieu,
"the strange silence of bees" in which all causes are discussed http://lesilencedesabeilles.over-blog.com/
Finally, if
we take together, Maria Spivak conference, Vincent Tardieu's work, and many
studies from all sources published on this subject, we realize that the problem
is extremely complex, and that the dominant point is not, as some would lead us
to believe, an ideal culprit and so easy to condemn like a group of
insecticides.
In
short, the causes are many. French
members of the parliament have chosen, by their vote or by their absence, to
yield to the dictates of Environmental lobbies, whose objectives are at
least dubious, and pressure tactics even more doubtful. Yet nothing new has
been published on the subject, no recent studies or expertise has further
involved pesticides, nothing to corroborate the thesis that this ban can solve
in any way the bee decline problem. But in France, we are in pre-election
period, and you have to go fishing for votes, satisfy the little people, even
if the consequences are serious.
But this ban
will have consequences, do not doubt about it, but probably not those expected.
Will crop problems disappear with this ban?
What do you
think farmers will do to continue to produce and make their work profitable?
They shall spray even more, since
products that allowed them to reduce sprayings in recent years, will now be
banned.
Because the arrival of neonicotinoids, in the early 90's, allowed a marked
reduction in quantities of insecticides applied per hectare. And they shall spray with products much
less sneaky, it's true, products that kill bees clearly, very clearly, in a few
minutes, as in the good old days...
Because
these products have another feature, their mode of action, which allows the
farmer, when the problems are serious, to alternate product families and
especially modes of action, so as to avoid the risk of resistant strains of
parasites. Another family less, after organochlorine, carbamates,
organophosphorus compounds, among others.
Because one
of the basic principles of integrated production, or Integrated Pest
Management, is precisely the alternation of modes of action, so as to reduce
the one hand the risk of resistance, and secondly the impact, not of the
spraying itself, but of the whole applications that could be achieved during a
year.
A family
less is a little more environmental burden of what remains. And what is
remaining, anyway? Some new products, and especially the synthetic pyrethroids,
a group of molecules with powerful shock effect, very versatile, and extremely
toxic to aquatic life.
Hello bees, bye bye fishes. That is
consistent environmentalism!!!
Would it not be more reasonable to
control the proper use of what is existing? Because neonicotinoids, if
properly used, do not present a serious problem. It's just necessary to ensure that the application periods not allow
these products to be in the nectar.
For example,
in orchards I care, the main farm is 300 hectares, with only peach trees,
except 15 hectares of plum. These plum trees need beehives for pollination. All
orchards usually receive two neonicotinoid applications per year, sometimes
more, case by case. Watch these two videos of beehives this spring, after 3
weeks of presence in plum.
And imagine
that the beekeeper asked us to host his beehives in our farm throughout the
year, something we do for over 10 years. In fact, the blooming is over, and the
beehives are actually on the farm.
So who is
intoxicating who?
The farmer
with pesticides?
Or
rather environmentalist lobbies with the pollution of public debate?
In Canada,
the brand of cereals Cheerios, has launched a very interesting marketing
operation, to the extent that it will help make the public aware, firstly of
the importance of this issue, and secondly that everyone can participate from his garden or balcony, in safeguarding
bees by planting flowers. Flowers from spring to fall, flowers diverse, varied,
enabling bees to feed throughout their period of activity.
So
yes, I can confirm, in this 300-hectare farm, there is something special, a
large fringe of wild plants, which isolates the farm from the river that goes
along it on more than 5 kilometers, where vegetation is free, and where
biodiversity is high, allowing bees to eat all year long.
Let's
stop talking nonsense, and stop banning.
It must be regulated, controlled, to
ensure the proper use of available products.
It is especially necessary to
force, by all possible means (aid, assistance, penalties), the installation of
many biodiversity areas. For this, we must educate, encourage, help, support
all the positive initiatives but also penalize if necessary.
And you will
see how everything will change, without need once again to attack agriculture.
But it is
easier, cheaper, and more electorally profitable to ban.
It's
pathetic and ridiculous. French parliamentarians have chosen the worst
solution. They will cause a worsening of the environmental situation of
agricultural areas, and won't solve anything for bees.
In fact, everyone can help in the
rescue of bees. You can sow in your garden, on your balcony, in flowerpots, on
roadsides, everywhere, mixtures of flowers, those found for flowery fallows or
flower garden all summer. These small individual contributions are easy, cheap
and very important, because they are very effective.
Without that, despite all pesticide
bans, bees will continue to die of hunger.
The day that
members of parliament will understand that it is more efficient (but more
difficult) to encourage than to ban, while civil society is on the brink of a
profound change.
But it's so much easier to have a scapegoat, a
whipping boy, an ideal culprit whose guillotined head can be shown to the
little people, well-handled and eager for revenge.
