US beekeepers and farmers filed petition to urge EPA to regulate neonicotinoid-treated seeds
Date:05-04-2017
Center for Food Safety, on behalf of beekeepers, farmers and sustainable agriculture, and conservation groups, filed a formal legal petition requesting reforms in the U.S. EPA regulation of harmful neonicotinoid insecticide seed coating, which is used on dozens of crops. Numerous studies have shown devastating impacts specifically to pollinators from the broad use of the seed coating.
The petition represents the concerns of the overwhelming majority of America’s managers of honey bees, which are considered essential to food supply.
The Petitioners said that EPA has allowed millions of pounds of coated seeds to be planted annually on more than 150 million acres nationwide. The group’s petition shows the agency has improperly allowed this to occur, without requiring the coated seeds to be registered under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), without enforceable labels on the seed bags, and without adequate assessments of the serious ongoing environmental harm.
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