It seems that Canada is taking a more European stance on crop pesticide application. Health Canada, joint with Agriculture Canada’s Pesticide Management Regulatory Agency, has announced upcoming rules governing more restricted use of Neonicotinoid-compound insecticides. Neonicotinoids, or Neo-nics, are one of the most widely used insecticides. They’re designed to control insects that attack the roots or early-stage growth of crops. However, the chemistry has also been shown to affect on some crop pollinators including honey bees, bumble bees and ground-nesting bees. Dr. Nigel Raine in the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of Guelph, is a bee specialist. Dr. Raine believes that Health Canada may have fallen short in limiting the new Neo-nic restrictions primarily to Horticulture applications:
,quality(10),blur(50))
The Canadian federal regulations name three Neo-nic based products that will be restricted for use in fruit and vegetable production. Caleigh Hallink-Irwin is manager of crop protection services with the Canadian Horticulture Council:
Dr. Raines says that most of the evidence around neo-nics is its effect on colony-bees such as honey bees. But neo-nic technology is primarily applied to seed-treatment for field crops, and this poses a problem to far than colony bees. Caleigh Hallinck-Irwin says the industry and growers are concerned there is ‘really nothing in the pipeline’ to replace neo-nics. But she says this could be the time to step-up the enlistment of some natural enemies.