Chasjo Mitch's List: Agriculture

• Unusual honeybee die-offs have become so severe that some US beekeepers will qualify for disaster relief funds
• Although news about Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) has died down, commercial beekeepers have seen average population losses of about 30 percent each year since 2006,
• In addition to continued reports of CCD -- a still somewhat mysterious phenomenon in which entire bee colonies literally disappear, alien-abduction style, leaving not even their dead bodies behind -- bee populations are suffering poor health in general, and experiencing shorter life spans and diminished vitality. And while parasites, pathogens, and habitat loss can deal blows to bee health, research increasingly points to pesticides as the primary culprit.
• Of particular concern is a group of pesticides, chemically similar to nicotine, called neonicotinoids (neonics for short), and one in particular called clothianidin. Instead of being sprayed, neonics are
  used to treat seeds, so that they're absorbed by the plant's vascular system, and then end up attacking the central nervous systems of bees that come to collect pollen.
• Virtually all of today's genetically engineered Bt corn is treated with neonics.
• Evidence already pointed to the presence of neonic-contaminated pollen
  as a factor in CCD. As Hackenberg explained, "The insects start taking [the pesticide] home, and it contaminates everywhere the insect came from." These new revelations about the pervasiveness of neonics in bees' habitats only strengthen the case against using the insecticides.
• The irony, of course, is that farmers use these chemicals to protect their crops from destructive insects, but in so doing, they harm other insects essential to their crops' production -- a catch-22 that Hackenberg said speaks to the fact that "we have become a nation driven by the chemical industry."
• he knows that "if I spray, I'm going to kill all the beneficial insects." But most farmers, lacking Hackenberg's awareness of bee populations, follow the advice of the crop adviser -- who, these days, is likely to be paid by the chemical industry, rather than by a state university or another independent entity.
• Unfortunately, it was the EPA itself that green-lit clothianidin and other neonics for commercial use, despite its own scientists' clear warnings about the chemicals' effects on bees and other pollinators.
• "If we can protect that pollinator base, it's going to have ripple effects ... for wildlife, for human health," he said. "It will bring up subjects that need to be looked at, of groundwater and surface water -- all the connected subjects associated [with] chemical use and agriculture."

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• As Salon noted last week, the study found that rats fed Monsanto’s GMO corn, or exposed to its popular herbicide, developed tumors and organ damage, often dying younger than control group rats.
• France has announced it will uphold a ban on GMO crops, while activists and farmers in California and elsewhere in the U.S. are pushing for GMO foods to be labeled in stores and for the government to further investigate the health impact of Monsanto’s products.

• On the heels of news from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that sales of antibiotics for livestock rose 23 percent in recent years, the agriculture industry is bracing for regulators to set what are expected to be much stricter regulations for their usage by the end of 2016.
• Specifically, a growing number of researchers has linked the excessive use of antibiotics in livestock with fueling drug resistance in humans, putting the population at risk of falling victim to “superbug” bacterial mutations. 
• About 32 million pounds of antibiotics intended for farm animals are sold every year and some 80 percent of the antibiotics sold in the U.S. are estimated to be used on livestock, rather than by humans

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