Tag Archives: Syngenta

Insecticides are killing the honeybees

Is corporate profit worth wiping out honeybees?

Brian Wallheimer wrote in ScienceDaily 12 Jan 2012, Honeybee Deaths Linked to Seed Insecticide Exposure,

Analyses of bees found dead in and around hives from several apiaries over two years in Indiana showed the presence of neonicotinoid insecticides, which are commonly used to coat corn and soybean seeds before planting. The research showed that those insecticides were present at high concentrations in waste talc that is exhausted from farm machinery during planting.

The insecticides clothianidin and thiamethoxam were also consistently found at low levels in soil — up to two years after treated seed was planted — on nearby dandelion flowers and in corn pollen gathered by the bees, according to the findings released in the journal PLoS One this month.

“We know that these insecticides are highly toxic to bees; we found them in each sample of dead and dying bees,” said Christian Krupke, associate professor of entomology and a co-author of the findings.

The authors are careful to say they don’t claim to have found the only cause of honeybee deaths, because they can’t prove that. They do seem to have proved specific insecticides are one cause.

Is wiping out honebees worth the profits of a very few large agrobusinesses that sell these poisons?

Who sells this stuff, anyway? Bayer, Arysta, and Valent sell clothianidin, and Syngenta (SYT) sells thiamethoxam. What’s Syngenta’s excuse?

How do we feed a growing world population?
By poisoning honeybees, apparently.

-jsq

Monsanto blocks independent GMO research in the U.S. –L.A. Times op-ed

Doug Gurian-Sherman writes No seeds, no independent research:
Multibillion-dollar agricultural corporations, including Monsanto and Syngenta, have restricted independent research on their genetically engineered crops. They have often refused to provide independent scientists with seeds, or they’ve set restrictive conditions that severely limit research options.
In case you wondered why all the research seems to come from other countries, such as Argentina and France, as shown in this documentary from Germany? Well, now you know.

-jsq

Pigweed: don’t let it come up

So is it just a few people’s opinion that plowing works much better than herbicides to control mutant pigweed?

Henry Gantz writes in Don’t Give Pigweed The Light Of Day, If it doesn’t come up, you don’t have to kill it that farmers were depending mostly on Roundup, but that no longer works, due to multiple mutant weeds, including pigweed and marestail. He quotes Dr. Larry Steckle, Extension weed specialist at the University of Tennessee:

Steckle said we’ve now reached the point where we have to begin thinking in terms of controlling “resistant weeds” instead of “resistant marestail” or “resistant Palmer pigweed” because they are both beginning to show up in the same field.

“We have to manage them both,” he said. “There’s a new product from BASF called Sharpen that I’ve been looking at for five years and I’ve been very impressed with the marestail control. I still like dicamba, Roundup and Gramoxone.

“But if you have Palmer pigweed, too, then you’re going to have to overlap with residuals ― Cotoran, Caparol, Prowl ― to have any chance to do a good job of controlling them.”

So, what’s the solution: Continue reading →

Deep-Till: Back to the Future of Plowing

Roy Roberson writes in Farm Press about http://southeastfarmpress.com/cotton/herbicide-resistance-0525/:
Deep tilling of crop land pocked and rutted by heavy equipment used on rain and snow soaked, often frozen farm land may not only clean up the land, but may have a significant positive effect on managing herbicide resistant weeds, especially Palmer pigweed.
Back to the future! “Deep tilling” is the current buzzword for plowing. That’s how my father farmed, with a bottom plow, a subsoiler, a harrow, and a cultivator.

The same article continues to defend no-till:

There is no doubt about the many benefits of minimum or no-till cropping systems. Reduced-tillage saves farmers money in equipment, improves soil quality, improves the environment by making the soil more porous and produces better drainage. The list of benefits goes on and on.
Promotes more erosion, is my observation. And how does no-till save farmers money if they have to pay for increasing amounts of pesticides to try to deal with mutant weeds like pigweed? Continue reading →

Suicide in India and How to Stop It

Vandana Shiva writes in Huffington Post about India:
200,000 farmers have ended their lives since 1997.
In just one Indian state:
1593 farmers committed suicide in Chattisgarh in 2007. Before 2000 no farmers suicides are reported in the state.
Why?
In 1998, the World Bank’s structural adjustment policies forced India to open up its seed sector to global corporations like Cargill, Monsanto and Syngenta. The global corporations changed the input economy overnight. Farm saved seeds were replaced by corporate seeds, which need fertilizers and pesticides and cannot be saved.

Corporations prevent seed savings through patents and by engineering seeds with non-renewable traits. As a result, poor peasants have to buy new seeds for every planting season and what was traditionally a free resource, available by putting aside a small portion of the crop, becomes a commodity. This new expense increases poverty and leads to indebtness.

And that’s not all: Continue reading →