The Soil Association has written to Defra secretary of state Hilary Benn urging him to ban neonicotinoids sprays in the UK with immediate effect, after suggestions the products are killing bees.
The insect sprays, widely used in UK farming, have been banned in four other European countries because they are thought to be killing bees.
Italy has joined Germany, Slovenia and France in banning the sprays.
Beekeepers have reported potentially catastrophic loss of bees from their hives, ranging anywhere from 30 to 90 per cent. Britain’s beekeepers have reported that close to one in three hives have failed to make it through last winter and spring.
The US department of agriculture says that one out of every three mouthfuls of food is dependent on bee pollination, and globally up to two thirds of all major crops rely on pollination, mainly by bees.
The products implicated in bee deaths - clothianidin, imidacloprid, fipronil and thiamethoxam - are approved for use on a wide range of crops in the UK, including oilseed rape, barley, and sugar beet. They are also cleared for use in ornamental plant and hop production.
Peter Melchett, Soil Association policy director, said: “It is typical of the lax approach to pesticide regulation in the UK that we look like being one of the last of the major farming countries in the EU to wake up to the threat to our honeybees and ban these sprays. We want the government to act today to remove this threat to Britain’s honeybees. The UK government is almost alone in the EU in fighting against proposed new, tighter European controls on farm sprays, and in the light of what has happened to honeybees, we are calling on Hilary Benn to back European proposals for tighter controls on farm sprays.”
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