Say No to Neonics

Read our reaction to the latest decision to allow thiamethoxam for the fourth year in a row here.

On the 23rd January 2023 following lobbying from the sugar industry, the UK Government announced its decision to grant an “emergency authorisation” for the use of a product containing the banned neonicotinoid thiamethoxam to treat sugar beet seeds in 2023. This follows the approval of similar applications for growing seasons in 2021 and 2022, where the use of banned neonicotinoid pesticides was permitted across more than 91,000 hectares of countryside in England.

These chemicals are known to have disastrous effects on UK wildlife. The Wildlife Trusts have consistently opposed a derogation due to the known environmental harms it causes and has criticised the flawed - and legally unsustainable - decision-making process the Government has used.

Evidence shows at least 50% of insects species have been lost since 1970, and the shocking reality that 41% of the Earth's remaining insect species are now 'threatened with extinction’. Farmers should not have to choose between farming and nature. We continue to call for proper, long term support for farmers to adopt non-chemical alternatives which are proven to support nature.

Over the past three years (2021, 2022, and 2023) the UK Government has granted emergency authorisation of this banned product.

The company British Sugar has requested ‘emergency’ authorisation in an effort to control aphid populations in sugar beet. This is because aphids are known to spread a disease called Beet Yellows Virus (BYV), which has the potential to reduce sugar beet yields significantly if left unchecked. Previous applications for the emergency use have been made by British Sugar who have pushed for the authorisation of the pesticide seed treatment to deal with “unprecedented” peach potato aphid Myzus persicae infestations (which carry Beets Yellows Virus) seen in 2020.

Under the emergency authorisation process, the application is considered by the Health & Safety Executive (HSE) and the Expert Committee on Pesticides (ECP). In all three years, the Government’s decision to allow the use of thiamethoxam on sugar beet went against the expert advice provided to the Government by both the HSE and ECP which advised that the risks to wildlife were too high, and that thiamethoxam should not be used even if the national incidence of Beet Yellows Virus was forecast to be high.

In early January 2021, the Government announced an emergency lifting of restrictions of the highly damaging neonicotinoid, thiamethoxam. The Secretary of State, George Eustice, made the decision in response to requests from the sugar industry because of the potential danger posed from beet yellows virus, which is spread by aphids.  A year on, the Government has made the same decision despite being explicitly advised not to by their top health and safety and pesticide experts.

The Wildlife Trusts are concerned that the powers granted under the legislation are being abused to authorise the regular and routine use of banned chemicals. This is in direct contradiction of the 2018 ban of neonicotinoids, jeopardises the Government's legally binding targets set out in the Environment Act, and undermines promises made internationally to reduce the impact of pesticides.

The sugar industry has requested an ‘emergency authorisation’ for the use of the banned chemical thiamethoxam four years in a row, despite saying they would only need it for a maximum of three years. However, the legislation which underpins this process clearly states that the authorisation must only be used to allow the limited and controlled use of a chemical for a “period not exceeding 120 days”.

Each year, more research is published on the devastating impacts of neonicotinoids, including the chronic non-lethal effects of these chemicals which can persist for years in the environment. It’s becoming clear that this ‘temporary’ measure will have long-lasting effects on our pollinators.

Increasingly, the UK is experiencing milder and wetter winters, so the issue of virus in sugar beets will likely only increase in future years. This is why it is critical to support farmers to transition away from harmful chemicals that threaten the future of our farming and natural systems. Continuing short-term options to tackle the effects on crops from pest impacts which will only get worse with climate change is short-sighted, and does not help farmers take a long-term, integrated approach to pest management.

Crucially, the expert scientific advice given to the Government stated the environmental harms would outweigh potential economic benefits, even when the strict conditions in the application were taken into account. The advice was clear that the conditions attached to these authorisations are not enough to mitigate the loss to bees. 

The authorisations granted in recent years did include conditions which were designed to protect nature, such as a threshold limit for use and a requirement to prevent pathways for the chemical to reach vulnerable insects like bees. However, the model used to calculate the threshold is flawed, and the so called ‘protections’ for bees in reality equate to more pesticides and the removal of important wildflowers.

There are alternatives to using these hugely harmful chemicals, such as adopting Integrated Pest Management approaches, and they are already being used by many sugar beet farmers in the UK who do not want to use this neonicotinoid.

In 2022, almost a third of sugar beet farmers in England chose not to use these toxic pesticides despite an authorisation allowing their use. It is entirely possible to produce food in a way that helps rather than harms nature – farmers know that the use of this chemical is not a long term solution.

Farmers need support to build resilient and sustainable farming practices. But rather than supporting these farmers, the industry has applied for further use of thiamethoxam. If successful this year, nature-friendly farmers will have to compete with those who use thiamethoxam-treated seed, actively discouraging non-chemical alternatives.

Rather than repeat authorisations for toxic chemicals, The Wildlife Trusts want to see the sugar industry and UK Government offer more support to transition away from harmful pesticides that threaten the future of our farming and natural systems. Farmers should not have to choose between pesticides and pollinators.

Integrated Pest Management (IPM) is an approach to managing pests, diseases or weeds in which chemical pesticides are used only as a last resort, if at all. Many IPM practices that replace toxic chemical applications are good for wildlife because they focus on creating healthy soils and whole-farm ecology rather than just field margins or features.

The Wildlife Trusts believe our society shouldn’t have to make a choice between environmental harms at home or overseas, and it would be hugely damaging to nature if regulations around chemicals resorted to a “race to the bottom”. We understand concerns that halting pesticide use could lead to the UK having to import more sugar from abroad, where environmental regulations for farming may be lower than in the UK.

However, farmers have shown that we can produce sugar in the UK to higher environmental standards without the need for banned chemicals.

We want more farming in the UK work for nature, not against it. This means ensuring that UK farmers are not undermined by food produced to lower standards overseas. The Wildlife Trusts also want to see strong trade standards which assess the full environmental impacts of imports so the UK is not offsetting our environmental impacts abroad, and ensures UK farmers are supported to market food produced in nature-friendly farm systems.

Neonicotinoids are a type of ‘systemic’ pesticide. Unlike contact pesticides which remain on the surface of the treated foliage, systemic pesticides are taken up by the plant and transported to all its tissues (leaves, flowers, roots and stems, as well as pollen and nectar) where the chemical can remain active for weeks.

In the case of sugar beet, the neonicotinoid thiamethoxam is applied as a seed treatment – the seed is coated with the chemical before planting. By applying the chemical in this way to a non-flowering crop, the logic is that pathways for the pesticide to become established in the wider environment are reduced.

However, when treated with the chemical just 5% of the pesticide goes where it is wanted, in the crop. The remaining 95% ends up accumulating in the soil, from where it can be absorbed by the roots of wildflowers and hedgerow plants, or can leach into freshwater environments where it can remain active for weeks.

The impacts of this are huge. Over 3,800 invertebrate species in the UK spend at least part of their lifecycle in freshwater. They play a vital role in maintaining clean water; they help to break down and filter organic matter and provide a food source for fish, birds and mammals. Their presence is the standard indicator of the health of the habitat they live in.

The Wildlife Trusts are shocked that this request has been put forward again, and we’ve challenged the decision to allow the use of thiamethoxam in each of the past 3 years, citing overwhelming evidence demonstrating the terrible impacts of Thiamethoxam on bees and wider wildlife in the UK. We strongly oppose British Sugar’s requests.

In 2021, the first year of the authorisation, The Wildlife Trusts released a public statement clarifying our position and concerns  and launched a petition urging the then-Prime Minister to use his powers to overturn the authorisation which reached over 100,000 signatures.

In 2022, The Wildlife Trusts again opposed the decision to authorise thiamethoxam. We issued a press release calling on the Secretary of State to reverse the decision, and initiated a campaign that allowed members of the public to contact their MP on Twitter or via email to express their opposition. This campaign led to a Westminster Hall debate in the Houses of Parliament which debated the decision to allow banned neonicotinoids on British soils.

In 2022 The Wildlife Trusts also explored possible routes for legal action against the decision . We submitted a legal letter to the Government that outlined our opposition  on the grounds that it went against expert advice and the conditions for emergency authorisation were not met. However, by the time a case would have been considered, the neonicotinoid-treated sugar beet seeds would have already been planted, so any legal action would have been deemed academic.

In 2023, the Government’s decision to grant the authorisation was accompanied by stricter conditions, including a raise in the virus threshold needed for authorisation (the level of predicted virus incidence needed before farmers are allowed to apply neonicotinoids), but still went against the explicit advice of the Government’s independent experts. In what was becoming a Groundhog Day process, The Wildlife Trusts issued a press release, published blogs and other social media posts challenging the decision.

In January 2023 the European Court of Justice ruled that it was unlawful for the legislation used to grant emergency authorisations to be used to allow the use of banned neonicotinoid pesticides. This means that EU countries will no longer be allowed to authorise temporary exemptions for banned neonicotinoid pesticides.

As the UK is no longer a member of the EU, this ruling does not apply here. However, this demonstrates a significant divergence in environmental protections from chemicals between the UK and Europe. If the UK continues to use legislation to undermine promises to ban neonicotinoids and protect wildlife, there is a significant risk that wildlife in the UK will be in a worse state than if it was protected by European protections – an outcome which the UK Government promised would not happen.

The Wildlife Trusts do not actively ask people to boycott sugar producers or sugar providers. But that doesn’t mean that consumers can’t make a difference!

In years when the banned neonicotinoid, thiamethoxam, is granted an authorisation for use on sugar beet any product that contains sugar grown in the UK will contain neonicotinoid-treated sugar. This is because there is no way of separating the processing of sugar beet grown with and without neonicotinoid-treated seed, in England. This means that even when farmers try to grow sugar beet without the use of neonicotinoids, they are left with no routes to market their neonic-free seed – which they could expect a premium for.

This is not a technological issue, as it is frequently supported across European countries which are able to process and market organic sugar from sugar beet crops. In fact, in the EU organic sugar beet production is rapidly increasing showing that it is possible to produce sugar beet without neonicotinoids. A significant part of this shift has been driven by the EU’s stance on pesticides and the European Court of Justice’s recent ruling on the suitability of emergency authorisations for neonicotinoids.

In Insect Declines and Why They Matter (2019), a report published by an alliance of Wildlife Trusts, evidence points to the loss of at least 50% of our insects since 1970, with a further 41% of the Earth's remaining five million insect species now 'threatened with extinction’. With a third of our food crops pollinated by insects, and as many as 87% of our plants pollinated by animals (and in the majority by insects) there is a lot to lose. Much of our wildlife - be it birds, bats, reptiles, amphibians, small mammals or fish - rely on insects for food. Without insects we face the collapse of our natural world.

The Wildlife Trusts want a wilder future, where the value of our insects is respected and where insect populations are healthy and more abundant than today. We want farmers to be supported to adopt non-chemical alternatives so that agriculture supports nature, rather than destroy it.

See report