Some grocery chains are moving to help protect pollinators by requiring their suppliers to stop using nitroguanidine neonicotinoids, or neonics. Chains including Whole Foods and Kroger have recently outlined policies that will ban the use of neonics in crop production. Whole Foods’ policy also applies to its floral department. According to the Whole Foods policy, […]
By Andrea Germanos Despite lower applied amounts of pesticides in U.S. agriculture, their toxicity to non-target species including honeybees more than doubled in a decade, according to a new study. The findings by a team of researchers from Germany’s University Koblenz-Landau were published Friday in the journal Science. “We have taken a large body of […]
By Daniel Raichel Industry would have us believe that pesticides help sustain food production — a necessary chemical trade-off for keeping harmful bugs at bay and ensuring we have enough to eat. But the data often tell a different story—particularly in the case of neonicotinoid pesticides, also known as neonics. Despite being the most widely […]
The Center for Biological Diversity Thursday urged the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to deny Bayer CropScience’s request to allow the highly bee-toxic pesticide flupyradifurone to be sprayed on tobacco in states like Kentucky and North Carolina. Although flupyradifurone is known to harm pollinators like bees and freshwater invertebrates like mussels, the pesticide maker is asking […]
The Trump administration has lifted an Obama-era ban on the use of genetically modified crops and pesticides linked to bee decline in certain national wildlife refuges where farming is allowed, Reuters reported Saturday. In a memo signed Aug. 2, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Principal Deputy Director Gregory J. Sheehan said the move was necessary […]
By Dan Nosowitz Neonicotinoid pesticides have commonly been linked to the plight of honeybees. But a new study from the University of Guelph finds that honeybees aren’t the only non-pest creatures that are coming into contact with the pesticides. Neonicotinoids, sometimes called neonics, are pesticides chemically similar to nicotine, hence their name. There are several […]
Below is a transcript of the video. Rebecca Riley, senior attorney, NRDC: Right now, we’re in a real crisis when it comes to bees. Every year, about a third of our honeybee colonies collapse. And the 4,000 native bee species in the United States suffer from those same threats that honeybees do. Those are species […]
A major global assessment of global bird populations paints a grim outlook for our feathered friends. A new report from BirdLife International finds that 40 percent of the world’s 11,000 bird species are in decline, with one in eight bird species now under some threat of extinction. The State of the World’s Birds 2018 report, […]
A study published Thursday in Current Biology is being hailed in a University of Exeter press release as a major “breakthrough” in developing bee-friendly insecticides. But some environmentalists think the research is asking the wrong questions to begin with. Pesticide Action Network UK Director Keith Tyrell told DW that focusing only on bee-safe pesticides was […]