Rage as Tories allow banned bee-killing pesticides for fourth year running
Dead bees: allowing the sugar industry to use a banned pesticide may kill vast numbers of bees, with a knock-on effect that could harm the ecology of the whole planet.
Rishi Sunak’s government is playing with fire – not the kind that causes electoral losses, but the kind that creates ecological ruin.
Farmers have been given the go-ahead for the fourth year in a row to use a banned pesticide that kills bees – prompting anger among nature lovers.
Food and farming minister Mark Spencer has authorised the use of a neonicotinoid to protect this year’s sugar beet crops against viruses.
Just one teaspoon of thiamethoxam can kill 1.25 billion bees, according to biology professor and insect expert Dave Goulson, of the University of Sussex.
Bees exposed to a single dose of pesticide may require generations to recover, previous research has found.
According to the UK’s sugar industry, Cruiser XB – which contains thiamethoxam – will only be used if there is a threat of beet yellow virus to a crop, and stringent controls are attached.
But these pesticides are banned for good reasons: they are a risk to human health as much as that of wildlife.
And bees play a hugely important part in preserving the environment.
So this is a terrible decision.
And it comes on the day the government’s own advisers warned that it risks missing legally binding targets to halt nature decline by 2030.
With people like these in charge, we’re all going to die.
Source: Anger as government allows banned bee-killing pesticides for fourth year in a row | The Independent
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Dig a little deeper – Associated British Foods supplier of 60% of Britain’s Sugar is a Major Tory Donor so it was easy to get permission.
It has been said that’s why bans on Sugar in Food were also shelved.
Money talks, or Screams in the case of Tories !