Hello dfroelich and All, dfroelich posted:
"Yup, neonicotinoids are looking bad, but they have nothing to do with GMO." It appears you might be mistaken - Please read below:
Then, in the mid-to-late 1990s, GE corn and neonicotinoid (imidacloprid) seed treatments both entered the market —
the two go hand-in-hand, partly by design and partly by accident. Conditions for the marketing of both products were ripe due to a combination of factors ............
http://www.panna.org/...oney-bees-whats-link Excerpts:
Corn is far from the only crop treated by neonicotinoids, but it is the largest use of arable land in North America, and honey bees rely on corn as a major protein source. At least 94% of the
92 million acres of corn planted across the U.S. this year will have been treated with either clothianidin or thiamethoxam (another
neonicotinoid).
Then, in the mid-to-late 1990s, GE corn and neonicotinoid (imidacloprid) seed treatments both entered the market —
the two go hand-in-hand, partly by design and partly by accident. Conditions for the marketing of both products were ripe due to a combination of factors:
- regulatory pressures and insect resistance had pushed previous insecticide classes off the market, creating an opening for neonicotinoids to rapidly take over global marketshare;
- patented seeds became legally defensible, and the pesticide industry gobbled up the global seed market; and
- a variant of the corn rootworm outsmarted soy-corn rotations, driving an uptick in insecticide use around 1995-96.
Then, as if on cue, Monsanto introduced three different strains of patented, GE corn between 1997 and 2003 (RoundUp Ready, and two
Bt–expressing variants aimed at controlling the European Corn Borer and corn root worm). Clothianidin entered the U.S. market under conditional registration in 2003, and in 2004 corn seed companies began marketing seeds treated with a
5X level of neonicotinoids (1.25 mg/seed vs. .25).
... and in the space of a decade, U.S. corn acreage undergoes
a ten-fold increase in average insecticide use. By 2007, the average acre of corn has more than three systemic insecticides — both
Bt traits and a neonicotinoid.
Compare this to the early 1990s, when only an estimated 30-35% of all corn acreage were treated with insecticides at all.
Adding fuel to the fire, in 2008 USDA’s Federal Crop Insurance Board of Directors approved reductions in crop insurance premiums for producers who plant certain
Bt corn hybrids. By 2009,
40% of corn farmers interviewed said they did not have access to elite (high-yielding) non-
Bt corn seed. It is by now common knowledge that conventional corn farmers have a very hard time finding seed that is not genetically engineered and treated with neonicotinoids.
Enter fungicides In 2007, what’s left of corn IPM was further unraveled with the
mass marketing of a new class of fungicides (strobilurins) for use on corn as yield “boosters.” Before this, fungicide use on corn was so uncommon that it didn’t appear in Crop Life’s 2002 National Pesticide Use Database. But in the last five years, the pesticide industry has aggressively and successfully marketed prophylactic applications of fungicides on corn as yield and growth enhancers, and use has grown dramatically as a result. This despite the fact that these fungicides work as marketed less than half the time. According to this
meta-analysis of efficacy studies, only “48% of treatments resulted in a yield response greater than the economic break-even value of 6 bu/acre.”
At least 94% of the 92 million U.S. acres planted in corn is treated with pesticides known to harm bees.
Back to the bees. Neonicotinoids are known to
synergize with certain fungicides to increase the toxicity of the former to honey bees up to 1,000-fold, and fungicides may be key culprits in undermining beneficial bee microbiota that do things like make beebread nutritious and support immune response against gut pathogens like
Nosema. Fungicide use in corn is likewise destroying beneficial fungi in many cropping systems, and driving the emergence of resistant strains.
As with insecticides and herbicides, so too with fungicide use on corn: corn farmers are stuck on a pesticide treadmill on high gear, with a pre-emptively pressed turbo charge button (as “insurance”). Among the many casualties are our honey bees who rely on corn’s abundant pollen supply.
Keeping us all tethered to the pesticide treadmill is expected behavior from the likes of Monsanto. But what boggles the mind is that all of this is being aided and abetted by a USDA that ties cheap crop insurance to planting patented
Bt corn, and a Congress that refuses to tie subsidized crop insurance in the Farm Bill to common-sense conservation practices like bio-intensive IPM. Try explaining that with a waggle dance.
Wiki
Excerpts:
Bacillus thuringiensis (or
Bt) is a
Gram-positive, soil-dwelling
bacterium, commonly used as a
biological pesticide; alternatively, the Cry toxin may be extracted and used as a pesticide.
B. thuringiensis also occurs naturally in the gut of
caterpillars of various types of
moths and
butterflies, as well on leaf surfaces, aquatic environments, animal feces, insect rich environments, flour mills and grain storage facilities.
[1][2] During
sporulation, many Bt strains produce crystal proteins (proteinaceous inclusions), called
δ-endotoxins, that have
insecticidal action. This has led to their use as insecticides, and more recently to
genetically modified crops using Bt genes. Many crystal-producing Bt
strains, though, do not have insecticidal properties.
[3] B. thuringiensis was first discovered in 1901 by Japanese
biologist Ishiwata Shigetane.
[3] In 1911,
B. thuringiensis was rediscovered in Germany by Ernst Berliner, who isolated it as the cause of a disease called
Schlaffsucht in flour moth caterpillars. In 1976, Robert A. Zakharyan reported the presence of a plasmid in a strain of
B. thuringiensis and suggested the plasmid's involvement in endospore and crystal formation.
[4][5] B. thuringiensis is closely related to B.cereus, a soil bacterium, and B.anthracis, the cause of anthrax: the three organisms differ mainly in their
plasmids.
[6]:34-35 Like other members of the genus, all three are
aerobes capable of producing
endospores.
[1
http://www.farmaid.org/...vy4bgCFQnhQgodzRoA6g
Is it possible to escape genetic engineering at the grocery store? I pick up a box of my favorite peanut butter granola bars. The front of the box says, "100% Natural" and tells me they contain "16 Grams of Whole Grain*" while the back is filled with all kinds of information on what's inside: a full ingredient list, an all-caps notice that they contain "peanut, soy; may contain almond and pecan ingredients," a plethora of nutrition facts like calories, fat and protein. It even notes, "Carbohydrate Choices: 2" for those with a special diet plan. My main, and seemingly simple, question goes unanswered though: is this made with genetically engineered ingredients? (Genetically engineered crops are also known as GE, genetically modified organisms, or GMOs — go ahead and pick your favorite term, they're all interchangeable.)
I've come to a grocery store near the Farm Aid office in Cambridge, Massachusetts with one question in mind: how easy is it to find out if products contain GE ingredients?
What am I finding? It's not easy to find out at all.
Cheers,
Neal
+1 mph Faster
