A rather interesting decision is likely to come down in the coming months from Health Canada.
The national organization is about to determine the fate of neonics for use by Canadian agricultural producers.
Neonicotinoid insecticides are used by almost every conventional farmer of huge acres of cropland in Canada.
There are three main products on the market. 鈥淭he neonics, as they are commonly known, are applied to almost every corn and canola seed in Canada and a portion of soybean seeds,鈥� reported a recent article at www.producer.com. 鈥淭hey are also sprayed on fruit, vegetables and berry crops.鈥�
Neonics have come under fire internationally, in-part because some reports have linked in the use of the insecticide to large decreases in bee populations in some locales, which is worrisome since bees are a key pollinator and pollination is essential in the production of crops.
The European Union banned all outdoor uses of the three main neonics, following a 2018 report from its scientific risk assessment authority confirming serious danger to honeybees and wild bees, noted an article at www.davidsuzuki.org
The impact on the insecticide may however extend beyond bees.
鈥淲hile neonics are notoriously toxic to bees, they can also harm other beneficial organisms, including aquatic insects like mayflies, which are an important link in the food chain,鈥� detailed the David Suzuki Foundation article.
In 2016, Health Canada did propose to phase out all agricultural uses of imidacloprid because the insecticides were accumulating in ponds, creeks and other water bodies near agricultural land, noted the Western Producer article. 鈥淚n 2018 the department made the same phase-out recommendation for thiamethoxam and clothianidin. If neonics are harming aquatic insects such as midges and mayflies, it could pose a threat to birds and other animals that rely on the insects for food.鈥�
But the final fate of the insecticides is still to be determined in Canada, as Health Canada monitors collected water data, and not just computer models as it works towards a final decision on the environmental safety of neonics.
Frederic Bissonnette, a Health Canada spokesperson, said in the www.producer.com article, scientists with the Pest Management Regulatory Agency have a huge amount of data on the concentrations of neonicotinoid insecticides in wetlands, creeks and water bodies across Canada.
That data may determine if neonics are a threat to aquatic insects, or not.
If a ban is forthcoming it will have a significant impact of farmers given the widespread use of the products to provide crop production from a range if invasive bugs that if left uncontrolled would slice into production in a major way.
Any ban will no doubt be phased in, if it comes, but farmers and their support industries will need to scramble to find a cost-effective and control effective to the use of neonics.
