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.
Aren’t sugar beets harvested long before they flower?
It isn’t bees being attracted to suragbeet flowers that is the problem. The pesticides and their breakdown products can reach bees by several other routes: crops planted afterwards, plants growing nearby, fluids produced by the beet themselves and fluids produced by crops growing afterwards. Here is the DEFRA summary - and here is the British Beekeepers Assoc. view..