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Pesticide believed to kill bees is authorised for use in England

theguardian.com

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Re: Pesticide believed to kill bees is authorised for use in England

#91

Post by vcdimension »

kurthr wrote: post #86
martinald wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But what percentage of UK land is used for growing sugar beet? It must be a small fraction. How many bees are actually going to be in the vicinity of this? I can't see it being a large amount. Regarding "we can just import it", well yes, but if everyone took that opinion then there wouldn't be any farming anywhere eventually.

Sugar beets are only grown where cane is not a viable crop, but end-end they are typically about 2-3x the cost of production. Beet sugar is an awful ecological and economic choice created by putting taxes on the importation of cane sugar. To the extent that it is pure sucrose (and I'm not aware of any alcohols made from beets like rum is from molasses) there isn't any difference in the product either. The US pioneere…

The U.K. recently dropped tariffs from half of it's sugar imports as part of its post brexit, more outward looking trading policy: http://reut.rs/3s7MBYZ The countries that export sugar to the UK (including E.U. ones) use neonicotinoids, so I guess this emergency measure is to soften the blow to UK farmers, and give them some breathing space while they transition to other crops. It makes sense for the UK to import sugar rather than produce it locally since extracting sugar from beet is far less efficient than extracting it from cane.

Re: Pesticide believed to kill bees is authorised for use in England

#92

Post by lwhi »

Chris2048 wrote: post #64
lwhi wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How's it been shown to be BS?

It fails to mention the authorizations are "Emergency authorizations", thereby omitting relevant information to make the title more click-baity

Read the article. It doesn't.

Re: Pesticide believed to kill bees is authorised for use in England

#93

Post by dghughes »

I recall a science show (Quirks & Quarks) here in Canada explaining this. It's not just that neonicotinoids cause harm to bees but the bees actually prefer it. Bees go out of their way to collect pollen on plants with neonicotinoid pesticides on them.

Re: Pesticide believed to kill bees is authorised for use in England

#96

Post by thebudgie »

kurthr wrote: post #48
40four wrote: post #34

I’m not really sure yet how I feel about this particular case of temporary emergency authorization (which is omitted from the title). I get the chemicals were banned for good reason, but in this case they are trying to prevent a whole commodity sector from collapsing. Tough situation to be in. The larger issue to me is how warped the debate around saving bees and pollinators has become. I get very frustrated every ti…

I see your position, and I agree that the problem is more complex than just pesticides are bad, but it's also more complex than saving sugar beets. If this were an invasive species (like murder hornets or malarial mosquitos) problem that could be stopped before it started or a temporary measure to prevent life and death (rather than wealth accumulation) for a significant number of people, I'd have more sympathy. Appl…

"If this were an invasive species (like murder hornets or malarial mosquitos) problem that could be stopped before it started or a temporary measure to prevent life and death (rather than wealth accumulation) for a significant number of people"

I wonder what recent event governments could have used to show that this was a reasonable course of action to take. One that they could manage easily when it is in its early stages, having been warned about it. Perhaps one that affects humnans?

What thing could they have managed better that would make us trust our government in the UK to be using this known bee killer to manage a disease for a greater good later on?

Re: Pesticide believed to kill bees is authorised for use in England

#97

Post by baud147258 »

This reminds me of a discussion on pesticides I had with a friend working for the FNSEA (a French agricultural union) and one of his point that, if a pesticide is banned, farmers will just use another (which might more or less efficient, more or less targeted...)

Re: Pesticide believed to kill bees is authorised for use in England

#98

Post by monk_e_boy »

GordonS wrote: post #59
40four wrote: post #34

I’m not really sure yet how I feel about this particular case of temporary emergency authorization (which is omitted from the title). I get the chemicals were banned for good reason, but in this case they are trying to prevent a whole commodity sector from collapsing. Tough situation to be in. The larger issue to me is how warped the debate around saving bees and pollinators has become. I get very frustrated every ti…

I don't know where you're from, but for our US readers it might be worth pointing out that large farms in the UK are nowhere near the size of "large" farms in the US. I've also never heard of "bees as a service" here, though I know it exists in the US. For reference, I'm not a farmer, but live in the British countryside.

Agree, never heard of bees as a service - also live in a farming community. We farm different crops here.

Re: Pesticide believed to kill bees is authorised for use in England

#99

Post by 7952 »

beaconstudios wrote: post #11
Sudophysics wrote: post #7

A society of advanced apes with a penchant for destroying their environment decides that a species that is necessary for their survival is better off dead because they don't care for a weird thing called science.

Arguably it's the success of science that has allowed us to destroy our environment. Back in the middle ages we didn't have much leverage over nature. The problem we have is that there's lots of us and we're pretty insatiable.

We had lots of leverage over nature in the middle ages. By that point Britain had little woodland left, and what remained was often managed. People were digging ditches and creating hedgerow as a boundary.

Larger mammals like bear, lynx, and wolf were extinct or on their way out. Large birds of prey were aggressively persecuted. There was even land reclamation as far back as Roman times.

Humans have been dominant over wildlife in Britain for a long time. There are probably American zip codes areas that have more untouched landscape than the whole of britain.

Re: Pesticide believed to kill bees is authorised for use in England

#100

Post by 0_____0 »

GordonS wrote: post #59
40four wrote: post #34

I’m not really sure yet how I feel about this particular case of temporary emergency authorization (which is omitted from the title). I get the chemicals were banned for good reason, but in this case they are trying to prevent a whole commodity sector from collapsing. Tough situation to be in. The larger issue to me is how warped the debate around saving bees and pollinators has become. I get very frustrated every ti…

I don't know where you're from, but for our US readers it might be worth pointing out that large farms in the UK are nowhere near the size of "large" farms in the US. I've also never heard of "bees as a service" here, though I know it exists in the US. For reference, I'm not a farmer, but live in the British countryside.

mega acreage farms seem to be an american thing for some reason. read somewhere that the avg. american farm is ~100x larger than the average chinese farm for example
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