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Glyphosate Killing Bees!?!?


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2018 Sep 25, 6:52am   1,456 views  3 comments

by NuttBoxer   ➕follow (0)   💰tip   ignore  

Wow, I was expecting my image search with just the term Monsanto to turn up a few bad images, but man! They really are evil.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/sep/24/monsanto-weedkiller-harms-bees-research-finds

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1   anonymous   2019 Feb 10, 2:34am  

Pesticides Are Harming Bees in Literally Every Possible Way

This story originally appeared on Reveal and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration. It was produced in collaboration with the Food & Environment Reporting Network, an independent nonprofit news organization.

While soybean farmers watched the drift-prone weed killer dicamba ravage millions of acres of crops over the last two years, Arkansas beekeeper Richard Coy noticed a parallel disaster unfolding among the weeds near those fields.

When Coy spotted the withering weeds, he realized why hives that produced 100 pounds of honey three summers ago now were managing barely half that: Dicamba probably had destroyed his bees’ food.

In October, the Environmental Protection Agency extended its approval of the weed killer for use on genetically modified soybeans and cotton, mostly in the South and Midwest, for two more years. At the time, the EPA said: “We expect there will be no adverse impacts to bees or other pollinators.”

But scientists warned the EPA years ago that dicamba would drift off fields and kill weeds that are vital to honeybees. The consequences of the EPA’s decisions now are rippling through the food system.

Dicamba already has destroyed millions of dollars’ worth of non-genetically modified soybeans and specialty crops, such as tomatoes and wine grapes. And now it appears to be a major factor in large financial losses for beekeepers. Hive losses don’t affect just the nation’s honey supply: Honeybees pollinate more than $15 billion worth of fruits, nuts, and vegetables a year, largely in California, according to the Department of Agriculture.

“It seems like everybody’s been affected,” said Bret Adee, whose family runs the nation’s largest beekeeping outfit, in South Dakota. He thinks 2018 might be “the smallest crop in the history of the United States for honey production.”

From 2016 to 2017, US honey production dropped 9 percent. Official statistics for 2018 have not been released.

Beekeepers long have struggled to protect their hives from parasites, viruses, insecticides, and other colony-destroying threats. All these factors, as well as climate change, have been linked to colony collapse disorder, which emerged more than a decade ago and destroyed 30 percent to 90 percent of some beekeepers’ hives. Now with dicamba, beekeepers must contend with a scourge that can wipe out the food and habitat bees need to thrive.

Nine years ago, agricultural ecologist David Mortensen had told EPA officials that allowing dicamba use on genetically modified crops would pose serious risks to wild plants and the pollinators they sustain. In 2011, the EPA’s own scientists cited Mortensen’s work to conclude that increased use of dicamba could affect pollinators.

But the agency registered dicamba in 2016 despite the warnings, Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting and the Food & Environment Reporting Network reported in November. Last fall, the agency extended approval through 2020.

EPA officials declined to comment, citing the government shutdown.

‘Pretty Damning’ Evidence

No one factor can explain what’s driving hive losses. But the evidence is “pretty damning” that dicamba affects both pollinator forage and the bees themselves, according to Mortensen, chairman of University of New Hampshire’s Department of Agriculture, Nutrition, and Food Systems.

Dicamba damaged nearly 5 million acres of soybeans in the Midwest over the past two years, and “you know that all the field edges anywhere near the damaged crops were hammered by the herbicide,” he said, “which would mean the broadleaf plants the bees go to were hammered.” Dicamba has little effect on grasses, including corn and wheat, but even tiny doses can injure soybeans, wildflowers, and other broadleaf plants.

Dicamba was a hot topic at the annual American Honey Producers Association meeting earlier this month, said Darren Cox, a Utah beekeeper who stepped down as head of the association last year. “We’re very concerned about dicamba and the impacts it’s having on the honey industry and the health of bees,” he added.

This year’s honey crop was “very poor” in several regions, Cox noted. Drought in several top honey-producing states not only depleted bees’ forage, but also led to more herbicide use because stressed plants don’t easily absorb the chemicals. As a result, he said, “you tend to have weaker hive strength because of lack of forage and nutrition.”

More to read: https://www.wired.com/story/pesticides-are-harming-bees-in-literally-every-possible-way/
2   anonymous   2019 Feb 10, 2:39am  

French court cancels Monsanto weedkiller permit on safety grounds

PARIS (Reuters) - A French court canceled the license for one of Monsanto’s glyphosate-based weedkillers on Tuesday over safety concerns, placing an immediate ban on Roundup Pro 360 in the latest legal blow to the Bayer-owned business.

Germany’s Bayer, which bought Monsanto for $63 billion last year, faces thousands of U.S. lawsuits by people who say its Roundup and Ranger Pro products caused their cancer.

A court in Lyon in southeast France ruled that the approval granted by French environment agency ANSES in 2017 for Roundup Pro 360 had failed to take into account potential health risks.

Bayer, which said it disagreed with the decision and was considering its legal options, has cited regulatory rulings as well as scientific studies that found glyphosate to be safe.

The firm is appealing a first U.S. court ruling that awarded $78 million in damages to a school groundskeeper from California.

“Bayer disagrees with the decision taken by the Administrative Court of Lyon to cancel the marketing authorization for RoundUp Pro 360,” it said in a statement.

“This product formulation, like all crop protection products, has been subject to a strict evaluation by the French authorities (ANSES), an independent body and guarantor of the public health security.”

Glyphosate, which is off-patent and marketed worldwide by dozens of other chemical groups including Syngenta and DowDuPont’s Corteva Agriscience, is due to be phased out in France within three years under a pledge by President Emmanuel Macron, who stopped short of an outright ban.

IMMEDIATE BAN

The French court said ANSES had not respected a precautionary principle in French law, notably by not conducting a specific evaluation of health risks for Roundup Pro 360.

“Despite the European Union’s approval of the active substance (glyphosate), the court considered that scientific studies and animal experiments showed Roundup Pro 360 ... is a potentially carcinogenic product for humans, suspected of being toxic for human reproduction and for aquatic organisms,” the court said in a summary of its ruling.

Bernstein analysts said in a note that the financial impact on Bayer of banning RoundUp Pro 360 in France would likely be limited, given it concerned one product in a market for glyphosate-based weedkillers worth around 40 million euros.

The World Health Organisation’s cancer agency concluded in 2015 that glyphosate was probably carcinogenic, an assessment cited by the French court in Tuesday’s ruling.

More: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-bayer-monsanto-france/french-court-cancels-monsanto-weedkiller-permit-on-safety-grounds-idUSKCN1P91F6?il=0
3   Tenpoundbass   2019 Feb 10, 7:37am  

In a round about way.

If nobody is planting flowering landscapes because the Commie Libtards says it uses to much water that some little known minnow needs. Then nobody plants flowering plants.
Bees were making do by the flowering weeds. But if everyone is spraying weed killer and spreading weed and feed on their lawns so that only nonflowering grasses grow.
The bees eventually starve.

Exile all of the Liberals South Africa before they get us all Killed. Then the Bees will come back along with lawn sprinklers and Gerber daisies and bird of paradise flowers.

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