Sugar beet farmers have the green light to use a banned pesticide deadly to bees following a forecast that a virus could sweep through their crops.
Emergency authorisation to use neonicotinoids was given in January but rested on a threat level being met.
Supplier British Sugar said the predicted infection rate was now 83% of crop and was “historically high”.
Defra said the decision to approve was not “taken lightly” but campaigners said it made “a mockery” of the ban.
Neonicotinoids are toxic to pollinating bees, disrupting their ability to navigate and reproduce. But some sugar beet farmers say the pesticides are needed to protect against the disease known as virus yellows.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Sugar beet farmers have the green light to use a banned pesticide deadly to bees following a forecast that a virus could sweep through their crops.
“This year’s forecast for virus yellows infection is historically high and exceeds the threshold of 65% to use the seed treatment, as set by Defra in January,” he told the BBC.
Previous years have seen the predicted threat range from 8% in 2021 to 85% in 2020, a season when the virus was estimated to have eventually cost growers £43m.
But environmentalists and wildlife campaigners have warned that the decision will be devastating to bees and pointed out that the government had now approved neonicotinoid use for four consecutive years.
Richard Benwell, the CEO of Wildlife and Countryside Link, said: “To have four emergency authorisations in a row makes a mockery of the ban, and now the trigger has been reached, nature will once again have to endure exposure to this harmful chemical.”
Barnaby Coupe, land use policy manager at The Wildlife Trusts, said the organisation was “hugely disappointed” but called for farmers to be given more support to grow sugar beet without resorting to chemicals.
The original article contains 519 words, the summary contains 192 words. Saved 63%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!