Update (1st March 2024). Today, we learned that virus yellow incidence in sugar beet crops is predicted to be 83% in 2024, breaching the 65% threshold set by the government. This means banned neonicotinoids will once again be allowed to be used on sugar beet crops in England in 2024.
Read on for the full story and what this means for bumblebees and nature.
For the fourth year in a row the UK Government has granted an ‘emergency’ approval for the use of a banned pesticide on sugar beet in England. This is against the advice of its own Expert Committee on Pesticides as well as that of the Health and Safety Executive.
The banned neonicotinoid pesticide, thiamethoxam, restricted in 2018 for its harmful effects on bees, could therefore once again find its way into English sugar beet fields and then the surrounding environment. The choice to allow thiamethoxam to be used again was publicised on the same day the Office for Environmental Protection reported the government is failing on their commitment to reduce the use and impact of pesticides.
Today, we join our partner organisations in the Pesticide Collaboration to urge the Government to end the cycle of repeated authorisations for pesticides banned because of the harm they do to our wildlife. We are deeply concerned about the lack of progress on alternatives to using neonicotinoids on sugar beet, despite British Sugar’s 2020 promises that it would need no more than three years to develop alternative approaches and subsequent government statements echoing a move away from emergency authorisations of neonicotinoids by 2023.
What this means for bumblebees:
In this case the potential harm to bumblebees is somewhat limited as sugar beet is a non-flowering crop, so pollinators will not be drawn to it to feed, and the insecticide is applied as a seed dressing (rather than an in-field treatment such as a spray).
Risks to bumblebees in this circumstance are through the leaching of the active ingredient from the crop into wildflowers in and around the field margins, and in crops and other plant species grown in the same areas in future years. Some safeguards built into the derogation to combat these risks to pollinators:
- Sowing treated sugar beet seed only permitted if forecast aphid abundance in the crop is high enough to cause significant difficulties for growers (aphids are vectors for the three beet yellows viruses).
- An increased threshold of aphid incidence in the crop before use of the treated seed is permitted, from a projected 63% (based on the 2023 application), to 65% for 2024. We learned on 1st March that aphid incidence is predicted to be 83% in 2024, meaning this threshold has been breached, triggering the permitted-use of thiamethoxam.
- A 32-month ban of growing flowering crops in fields where treated sugar beet have been grown, increased from 22 months in the 2021 derogation.
- A ban on further use of thiamethoxam-treated sugar beet seed in the same fields for 46 months. Importantly, this means none of the fields treated in the previous two years will be treated again in 2024.
- Compliance with a stewardship scheme including a number of requirements for monitoring levels of neonicotinoids in the environment.
A further safeguard – the strict observance of herbicide programs to remove weeds from crop fields – will mean that bumblebees and other pollinators will be less exposed to insecticides in their food. However, it does have the potentially greater impact of further removing flowers from these areas, particularly if it reduces the area of pollen and nectar margins planted through agri-environment schemes. This will increase the pressure on pollinators, which already struggle to find food in our impoverished agricultural landscapes.
We are concerned to see annual requests for the use of banned pesticides, with little progress made on resistant varieties. A partially virus-tolerant variety is now available, however the varieties which produce the greatest yields are often prioritised. We are apprehensive that the long-term solution, according to Defra’s Chief Scientific Advisor, is waiting five years until pest-resistant gene-edited sugar beet is available. We need committed action, strong regulation and well-funded incentives to transform our farming practices so that they can be truly sustainable and help tackle the nature and climate crises we face.
Like last year, we are also troubled to see no consideration of how the processor, British Sugar, will deal with the contaminated soil. This is currently washed from the sugar beet, collected, and sold nationwide as topsoil. As a condition of the derogation, flowering plants cannot be grown for 32 months in the soil from fields where the treated sugar beet have been planted: this must be enforced even if the soil itself has been moved.
Beyond pollinators, neonicotinoids are well-known for their environmental mobility and can cause harm to other animals (such as invertebrates within the soil) and aquatic life in nearby watercourses, both of which are likely to be more at risk than bees in this case. It is likely that thiamethoxam levels in some boundary watercourses will exceed permitted levels under the Water Framework Directive.
For further information on the impact of pesticide use on bumblebees and our key recommendations see our recent pesticide position statement. If you are concerned about this decision, you can write to your MP and share links to this statement.
