In Reveal, a project of The Center for Investigative Reporting, Liza Gross reports in Bees face yet another lethal threat in dicamba, a drift-prone pesticide:
While soybean farmers watched the drift-prone weed killer dicamba ravage millions of acres of crops over the last two years, Arkansas beekeeper Richard Coy noticed a parallel disaster unfolding among the weeds near those fields.
When Coy spotted the withering weeds, he realized why hives that produced 100 pounds of honey three summers ago now were managing barely half that: Dicamba probably had destroyed his bees’ food.
In October, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency extended its approval of the weed killer for use on genetically modified soybeans and cotton, mostly in the South and Midwest, for two more years. At the time, the EPA said: “We expect there will be no adverse impacts to bees or other pollinators.”
But scientists warned the EPA years ago that dicamba would drift off fields and kill weeds that are vital to honeybees. The consequences of the EPA’s decisions now are rippling through the food system.
Dicamba already has destroyed millions of dollars’ worth of non-genetically modified soybeans and specialty crops, such as tomatoes and wine grapes. And now it appears to be a major factor in large financial losses for beekeepers. Hive losses don’t affect just the nation’s honey supply: Honeybees pollinate more than $15 billion worth of fruits, nuts and vegetables a year, largely in California, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
“It seems like everybody’s been affected,” said Bret Adee, whose family runs the nation’s largest beekeeping outfit, in South Dakota. He thinks 2018 might be “the smallest crop in the history of the United States for honey production.” . . .
Nine years ago, agricultural ecologist David Mortensen had told EPA officials that allowing dicamba use on genetically modified crops would pose serious risks to wild plants and the pollinators they sustain. In 2011, the EPA’s own scientists cited Mortensen’s work to conclude that increased use of dicamba could affect pollinators.
But the agency registered dicamba in 2016 despite the warnings, Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting and the Food & Environment Reporting Network reported in November. Last fall, the agency extended approval through 2020. . . .
A case study from Arkansas
Read the rest at Reveal. Earlier this month, Stephan Steed reported in the Arkansas Democrat Gazette article, Arkansas honey seller faults dicamba in closing:
Crooked Creek Bee Co., the retail sales and processing side of Arkansas' largest commercial beekeeper, closed this week, a casualty of dicamba, Richard Coy, one of its owners, said Friday.
The herbicide has been damaging or killing vegetation essential to pollination by bees the past three years, Coy said. Redvine, a flowering plant native to Arkansas, and button willow, a tree or shrub common in wetlands, are key to the flavor of his honey and have been particularly hit hard over the past year, he said.
The driving force behind us shutting down is the destruction of the pollinating plants that bees need," Coy said.
Dicamba is a weedkiller linked to crop and vegetation damage in Arkansas and other states in the past three years, as farmers planted soybeans and cotton genetically modified to be tolerant of the chemical. Dicamba damages other varieties of soybeans and cotton, fruits, vegetables and ornamental shrubs and bushes.
Weed scientists in Arkansas and other states say dicamba is susceptible after application to "volatilizing" as a gas and moving miles away, especially in hot and humid weather.
Arkansas had about 1,000 complaints of dicamba damage in 2017, prompting the state Plant Board to ban its use on crops after April 15 last year. Even with that cutoff date, the board received 200 complaints, leading its members to believe some farmers sprayed illegally deep into the summer. ...
Dampening down dicamba drift with deadlnes
In December, the Associated Press reported in Minnesota keeps June 20 cutoff for using weed killer dicamba:
Minnesota is maintaining its June 20 cutoff date for farmers to use the herbicide dicamba, which has been blamed for drifting and damaging neighboring soybean fields.
The Minnesota Department of Agriculture imposed the cutoff for 2018 after getting 253 reports of alleged dicamba drift in 2017, including 55 formal complaints requesting investigations. Some 265,000 acres were affected.
Agriculture Commissioner Dave Frederickson said Monday that the restrictions worked well. The department received 53 reports in 2018, including 29 formal complaints, and the affected acres plunged to just over 1,800.
The only change for 2019 is the lifting of a prohibition on applications when temperatures are above 85 degrees.
The weed-killer’s popularity has surged since companies rolled out dicamba-tolerant soybean varieties to help control weeds that have become resistant to other herbicides.
In South Dakota, "SDSU recommended a cut-off date of June 21 but due to an overwhelming about of moisture in southeastern South Dakota, many applicators missed that date," Jager Robinson reported in Dicamba cases ease up in first year of new regulations in the Tri-State Reporter. In early January, KGFO reported North Dakota dicamba cutoff date to remain for 2019 season. The North Dakota cut off is June 30.
In a press release sent out by Minnesota state representative Dale Lueck on June 12, 2018, House members ask for extension on dicamba application, Republican state representatives asked that Minnesota become a copycat of North Dakota:
“We, as members of the House agriculture committees, ask you to extend the date to allow for the application of dicamba at least through the month of June, to match our neighbor North Dakota, which has a June 30th cut-off date. We would also make it clear that we expect applicators to continue following all requirements on the Federal label . . .
Curious that Lueck and others would want Minnesota to become a warm North Dakota.
Does dicamba make "beewashing" more difficult?
We're curious to know if drift from dicamba, which is paired with Monsanto's dicamba-resistant cotton or soybeans varieties, was as hard on bee fodder in the Dakotas (top two states for commercial beekeepers) and Minnesota as it was in Arkansas, when the products were released in 2017. Even the pro-industry Genetic Literacy Program called the 2017 release of the seed varieties "the 2017 Monsanto dicamba herbicide fiasco," while the Pesticide Action Network reported that Monsanto’s dicamba crisis [was] guilty as charged.
The irony in dicamba killing bee fodder? Beewashing (feel good greenwashing with pollinators at its center) to draw attention from neonicotinoid insecticdes killing pollinators often point to a lack of fodder and habitat for bees and other pollinators.
What if drift from herbicides is killing that fodder? What if the same company makes the fodder-killing herbicide and the bee-killing insecticide? How then will the blame be shifted?
Photo: Bees.
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