[SallyintNorth]

Defra are planning to relax an EU-wide ban on pesticides (neonicotinoids) which harm bees. The temporary ban, duration two years, was put in place to allow field research to verify (or otherwise) laboratory research which shows that neonicotinoids harm bees.

Some farmers are finding that they can't control the flea beetle in oil-seed rape crops without neonicotinoids. I feel for them, but we must wait for the results of the field trials to discover whether these pesticides can be used safely. Bees are too important to risk. If we lose our bees, everyone loses - including farmers.

Please sign the petition to ask the Secretary of State to keep the ban in place. At the very least until Parliament reconvenes and can debate this very significant decision.

Read and sign the petition here

x-posing on other relevant boards

[Fleecewife]

Thank you so much for posting this Sally, and giving us all the opportunity to sign the petition.

The crazy thing is that for a pest such as flea beetle, there is a successful organic method for virtually eliminating them.  It requires a sweep with a sticky board low at the front of the tractor; The pests jump up and are caught on the sticky stuff.  I suppose you can spray with fewer passes, but the survival of bees is just as important to large scale producers as it is to smallfry, so a small effort will have an enormous reward.

We can do a lot for our bees - honey bees, bumble bees, solitary bees, plus hoverflies, all of which help pollinate crops as well as wild flowers.  Every bit of the good we do can be wiped out permanently by large scale use of chemicals.
I know there are smallholders who are happy to use chemicals for growing their crops, but I hope that most TASers will see the sense of signing the petition to keep the Government ban on neonicotinoids in place and SAVE OUR BEES. 

[SallyintNorth]

Thanks, FW.

I'm delighted that The Scottish Farmer has posted on their Facebook page a request for debate from me, so we can get more awareness of the issue amongst the wider farming community.  And also, I hope, hear more from the arable farmers about how this all looks from their point of view.

If anyone wanted to post a link to the petition in that discussion...  -  I didn't link to the petition as I wanted to get a discussion going, so didn't want to be partisan. 

[claire]

signed and shared on fb.