The Ontario government has announced that it plans to restrict the use of neonicotinoid insecticides, blamed for increased bee deaths in recent years. Farmers in the province will be required to apply for permits if they want to plant seeds treated with the controversial pesticides. But as a Globe and Mail article finally gets around to mentioning in its 10th paragraph, buried on a back page in the print edition, “The connection between bee deaths and the pesticides is murky.”
While some studies find a connection, others “point to parasitic mites and viruses as the more likely causes of bee deaths, in addition to winter starvation and loss of habitat.” There is also the fact that bee colonies in Western Canada have not declined the way they have in Ontario, even though neonicotinoids are used there to treat canola crops.
I don’t want the bees to disappear. It would be a shame, and it would be inconvenient— although it would hardly spell the end of agriculture, as some alarmists would have it.
But could we maybe establish a connection that is not “murky” before jumping to conclusions and giving government bureaucrats the power to override the decisions of market players, who by the way have every incentive not to kill the bees that pollinate their golden crops? “Beyond a reasonable doubt” might be too much to ask, but I think we could at least work our way up to “more likely than not” before assigning blame, as would be required in a civil court of law.
I don’t want the bees to disappear. It would be a shame, and it would be inconvenient— although it would hardly spell the end of agriculture, as some alarmists would have it.
But could we maybe establish a connection that is not “murky” before jumping to conclusions and giving government bureaucrats the power to override the decisions of market players, who by the way have every incentive not to kill the bees that pollinate their golden crops? “Beyond a reasonable doubt” might be too much to ask, but I think we could at least work our way up to “more likely than not” before assigning blame, as would be required in a civil court of law.