insecticides
Ontario sets limits on use of “neonic”-coated seeds
The provincial government of Ontario "is moving to take the sting out of pesticides that are killing bees," says the Toronto Star. On July 1, Ontario will be first jurisdiction in North America to limit plantings of corn and soybean seeds coated with neonicotinoid pesticides, says The Star...
Sugarcane aphid, voracious sorghum pest, heads northward
"It sounds like the plot of a cheesy 1950s sci-fi movie," says Delta Farm Press in a story about the rapid spread of the sugarcane aphid, which can cause huge losses in sorghum yields.
“There is no fear but the fear of hunger”
The mosquito nets distributed in Africa to combat malaria are being used "from the mud flats of Nigeria to the coral reefs off Mozambique" as fishing nets, says the New York Times...
Natural diet helps honey bees resist pesticides
Honey bees show more resistance to pesticides if they eat a natural diet of pollen than artificial diets such as soy protein, say researchers at Penn State University.
“Neonic” treatment of soybean seed isn’t worth the cost
The practice of coating soybean seed with neonicotinoid pesticides as a safeguard against insect damage provides "negligible overall benefits to soybean production in most situations," says an EPA analysis.
A bee researcher’s bees kept dying. The culprit was a nearby ethanol plant.
In FERN's latest piece, and the last from our special food issue with Switchyard magazine, reporter Dan Charles takes us through an agricultural mystery that leads, disturbingly, to a regulatory failure that threatens bees and other pollinators still today.