Bayer disappointed after neonics legal challenge rejected

[AdamD]

Earlier this month, The European Court of Justice (ECJ) dismissed an appeal by Bayer, on Thursday (6 May), which challenged the ban on neonics that has been in place since 2018. (From Farmers Weekly online news).

Although we don't have to abide by EU rules now, there is a fair chance that the banning of neonics will continue here in the UK. From what I read over the time before the ban there were mixed views as to how damaging neonics were to honeybees and pollinators (bees always did well on OSR which was invariably treated with neonics) and I suspect that some bee losses in Europe might have been caused by other things.
Having said that, I wonder if any studies have been done since the ban was put in place to see if native bee populations have increased as a result of the ban?

[JoJo36]

Hi Adam
Although the EU has banned the use of these chemicals, they have "allowed temporary emergency use" for sugar beet yellows virus which allows them almost 2 years of spraying! They have previously authorised emergency use which they don't seem to highlight in certain newspapers,!
The UK also gave temporary permission to UK farmers to use these chemicals for ( 2 months) for the sugar beet as in Europe, but as the virus wasn't as bad as expected it was withdrawn. (possibly backlash ie petition from beekeepers) given to UK Government helped but really don't know?! This of course was reported as UK lowering standards after leaving the EU but in reality the EU had a pass to do as they pleased:)

[AdamD]

The emergency use thing is a bit of a get-out! (And the farming lobby is quite strong so it might continue?).

For some time there was a lot of gnashing of teeth concerning neonics although a lot of the evidence agains them was unclear. However now their use is significantly lower than before the ban, one would expect to see an increase in insect and bird life which we would all want.
Thankfully I have never seen any evidence of spray poisoning which seemed to be more of a problem years ago and I was concerned that it might re-occur once neonic seed-dressings were banned and farmers reverted to spray.

[JoJo36]

I suppose only time will tell and its a difficult one as I can see the farmers point of view as well as beekeepers:)

[NigelP]

I've always wondered why the environmental groups went after Neonic's rather than the previous generation of organophosphates/Carbonates etc. These had to be sprayed directly onto crops, whereas the Neonics could be used to coat seed with and involved far less spraying.
And no since the neonic ban there has been no remarkable recovery noted in insect fauna as far as I can tell. In the fact the reverse may be true with declines being registered. .....perhaps because farmers are back to spraying the previous generation of insecticides? (Devils advocate ) .....