The EU is exporting more than 10,000 tonnes of “bee killing” pesticides a year to developing countries, despite having banned the use of these chemicals in its own fields, according to a report published Wednesday.

The report by Unearthed, the investigative journalism arm of Greenpeace, and Swiss-based non-profit Public Eye, highlighted the bloc’s continued trade in banned neonicotinoid pesticides.

Through documents obtained under freedom of information laws, the authors found that in 2021 EU companies issued plans to export more than 13,200 tonnes of banned insecticides containing around 2,930 tonnes of the neonicotinoid active ingredients thiamethoxam, imidacloprid, or clothianidin.

Meanwhile the EU prohibited all outdoor use of these chemicals on its own farms in 2018 to protect pollinators.

DESTINATION AND SOURCE

Only 17 companies are responsible for the harmful neonic exports, according to the report, with by far the largest exporter being the Swiss-headquartered, Chinese-owned pesticides giant Syngenta.

Syngenta’s planned exports accounted for more than three-quarters of the EU total, with Brazil its top destination, one of the world’s top biodiversity hotspots.

Low or middle-income countries were the destination of 86% of the EU’s neonic export total by weight.

In Argentina, one of the top five of these export destinations, beekeepers estimate they have lost 30% of their hives in the past decade, the authors wrote.

The Argentinian Beekeepers Society (SADA) called on the EU to “immediately stop the production of these highly hazardous chemicals”.

“We consider it an act of aggression, of ecocide, and a violation of human rights to sell toxic substances that are highly dangerous to human health and pollinating insects,” SADA secretary Pedro Kaufmann told Unearthed and Public Eye.

Meanwhile the EU in February passed a law that caps the maximum residue levels for clothianidin and thiamethoxam to be found in products, including imports into the bloc.

But EU-based companies nevertheless remain free to manufacture and ship neonics to countries with more-permissive regulations, so long as they issue related export notification.

Exporting companies such as Syngenta, Bayer, and BASF told the investigative team that their products were safe for bees when used as intended, that pesticides were vital for protecting crop yields, and that while these neonics were banned in the EU they remained licensed in many countries around the world.

One company argued that if Europe banned these exports then farmers in importing countries would simply replace them with “the same or similar products” produced in other places with “lower safety standards”.

NEXT STEPS

More than three-quarters of the world’s leading types of food crops depend on pollinators, mainly insects.

“[There are] many hundreds of scientific studies showing that neonicotinoids threaten pollinators and entire ecosystems,” University of Sussex biology professor Dave Goulson told the report’s authors.

“If neonicotinoids are too dangerous to use in Europe, they are too dangerous to use anywhere,” he added.

The EU has opened a public consultation running through July 31 on a legislative initiative which aims to prohibit production and export of certain hazardous chemicals that are banned in the EU, specifically to protect non-EU countries.

The strategy faces strong opposition from the chemicals lobby, according to the authors, and green groups fear the proposal will come too late to be made law before the next European elections in 2024.

By Katherine Monahan – katherine@carbon-pulse.com

*** Click here to sign up to our weekly biodiversity newsletter ***