The Toxic Bouquet – Pesticides

[JDParticipant]

I have just been reading a very worrying and depressing article on the Soil Association website by Dave Goulson of the University of Sussex entitled “The Toxic Bouquet”. It is an article about the use of neonicotinoid pesticides on the seeds of farmland crops and the activity of honeybees and bumblebees. Apparently after introducing bees to a field of oilseed rape and testing the pollen/nectar that the bees collected they found that 97% of the neonicotinoids had come from wild flowers, mainly hawthorn. On testing the pollen of these plants directly they found them to be contaminated with all sorts of pesticide/fungicide residues. Apparently of the pesticides the crop seeds are soaked in only 5% is absorbed by the crop leaving the other 95% to be taken up by other plants or leached into groundwater. My new allotment is only 7 feet away from farmland growing a ‘prairie’ field of rape. The number of times I have already seen a sprayer passing by is depressing. After reading this article I’m wondering whether to use the leaves of an oak tree next to my allotment whose roots are bound to be under this field…
It’s not just bees though, it’s butterflies too. Like many of us I can remember autumns years ago with flocks of small tortoiseshell/red admiral/peacock butterflies and then this year, in spite of growing notorious attractants of buddleja and sedum ice plants, nothing. The only butterflies I have seen all YEAR have been large (cabbage) white. Why do I feel that Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring is getting ever closer?
To me though the most depressing part of the article was in the middle. In 2013 because of concerns about neonicotinoids the EU banned them. However, in 2015 this decision was overturned by the Environment Sectetary for the Central and Eastern England agricultural belt – my area. For all its faults the EU has at least appeared to be fairly ‘green’, banning lots of chemicals. What awaits us after Brexit following lobbying by the agricultural industry? I can only console myself with the fact that at least some of us are tying to do their ‘bit’.

[charlesModerator]

I wish I was not sharing your concerns.
I grew up on a non-organic dairy farm and saw use of weedkillers and fertilisers, but not on the scale or at the intensity now employed. It’s frightening.
Prof. Coulson deserves a medal, one of the few scientists looking at this, and I hope his funding continues.
Even groups like the RSPB seem unaware of the issue: one of their officers, at a talk last year, was saying how they use pesticides on their East Anglian farm.

For you JD, your location for an allotment sounds difficult and I wish you the best. It’s like, does one have to watch this unfold?

[JDParticipant]

Exactly!

So what got you into organic then Charles? For me it was the ‘All Muck and Magic’ TV programmes run by HDRA/Garden Organic many moons ago in my formative years. Been a member ever since. I can still remember a programme featuring Beth Chatto saying she would never eat a non-organic apple because she used to work in the industry and the number of times apples were sprayed was insane. I can never quite get my head around the message that something toxic enough to kill other creatures is totally harmless and without effect on us! We have so much DNA in common.
Been a member of the RSPB for years too. I didn’t know they sprayed.
Hope you’ve not been flooded!
J
PS Do you ever sleep man?

[charlesModerator]

I read a philosophy book by Peter Singer I think, about animal rights, became vegetarian, grew interested in food, realised how little clean food there was (1980) and joined the Soil Association.
Yes it’s a no brainer, we are heading the wrong way.
And I go to bed early.

[JDParticipant]

You’ve come a long way since the dairy farm!

As a quick follow up have you ever done any experiments on comparing veg grown in your own composts from a ‘cold’ mainly fungal heap verses a ‘hot’ mainly bacterial heap? Or know of research by those who have?

Secondly, do you know of research by anyone who has tested compost made from ‘conventional’ veg, mainly brassicas, sprayed in a gamut of pesticides including the said neonicotinoids, to see how far the residues break down and whether they are ‘safe’ to use? Might be the only way I can find enough material at the moment to build a compost heap but I’m wary of the residues which might remain. Echos of aminopyralids.

Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions Charles. I appreciate you’re a busy man. Good luck with the diary. I shall be adding one to my collection.

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