The Ontario government is moving full steam ahead to reduce provincial farmers’ neonicotinoid use next year and beyond despite new science showing one type of the insecticide, clothianidin, used on seeds for canola crops poses a low risk for honeybees.
A recently published study by University of Guelph environmental sciences professor Cynthia Scott-Dupree and Dalhousie University environmental sciences department associate professor Chris Cutler of the neonicotinoid, clothianidin, concluded honeybee colonies face a low risk foraging on canola crops grown from seeds coated with the pesticide.
Asked about the study and its possible effect on the ministry’s plans, Ontario Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs Minister Jeff Leal says by email the ministry is working with beekeepers, grain farmers and others in the farming sector “to identify tangible ways to reduce the use of neonicotinoid-treated seed for the 2015 growing season.” The government is also “committed to developing a system that requires the targeted use of seed treated with neonicotinoids” to be in place by July 1, 2015. That gives “farmers enough time to transition for the 2016 growing season.”
Leal says Premier Kathleen Wynne supports the ministry’s plans as outlined “in her mandate letter to me.”
The ministry is also continuing its work on a comprehensive pollinator health plan to address the many other aspects of pollinator health, Leal says.
For 2015, the ministry is working with Grain Farmers of Ontario to distribute the "Guide to Early Season Field Crop Pests." The ministry is also promoting best management practices and placing ads in farm publications that talk about the need to use untreated versus treated seeds. The ministry plans to hold public consultations on its plans to have a system in place reducing neonicotinoid-treated seed use for the 2016 growing season.
The conclusion reached by Scott-Dupree and Cutler is just a small piece of the picture on one particular crop, says Peter Kevan, University of Guelph professor emeritus. And that’s why the study does not resolve the question of sub lethal effects of neonicotinoids on bees and pollinators, he says. “We know there are sub lethal effects of neonicotinoids on bumblebees (because of previous studies done). They (neonics) have, of course, lethal effects.”
Kevan says the study’s conclusion applies to a very specific instance. “You cannot go from that straight to other neonicotinoids, other crops and pollinators in general.”
