European Commission Agrees to Ban Neonicotinoids to Save Bees

If you drive a car in Europe, you may have made the same observation as me: driving on the motorway in summer a few years ago left your windscreen covered in insects. Doing the same in 2018 shows a very different picture: only a few insects collide. And this is not just an individual observation. A study published last year in PLOS ONE showed that the biomass of flying insects declined steadily over the past years. And it is a dramatic decline: a 82% reduction in mid-summer over the past 27 years. The first thought that came to my mind: “Great! Fewer mosquitos!”.

But it is not that straightforward. Insects play an important role in the food chain for other animals and for pollinating certain crops. And some insects play an important role in our nutrition: honeybees. Beekeepers have reported a reduction in the number of honeybee colonies between 30 and 40%. Considering that the global honey market had a volume of 6.6bn USD in 2015, with a predicted growth 5.2% CAGR, this is not an insignificant market segment. The honeybee decline has been linked to several factors: disease-spreading varroa mite and nosema, a fungal parasite, but also due to the use of neonicotinoids.

Neonicotinoids are a class of insecticides which are in their structure similar to nicotine. Their development was started in 1980 by Shell and ten years later also by Bayer. The purpose of neonicotinoids is to protect a variety of crops, including corn, canola, sugar beets and soybeans from insect damage. In the U.S.A., neonicotinoids are used on more than 90% of corn and canola crops and on a majority percentage of other crops like sorghum and sugar beets.

R-nicotine (Source: Wikipedia)

Desnitro-imidacloprid (Source: Wikipedia)

Unfortunately, neonicotinoids do not only affect the target insect population, but have also detrimental effects on honeybees. Neonicotinoids are so-called systemic insecticides, i.e. they are not only on the surface of the plants, but are absorbed by the pants and present in every part, from root to flower. Bees feeding on such plants are inevitably also taking in the neonicotinoids. A study published by the Royal Society showed that neonicotinoids affect the central nervous systems of honeybees, which leads to disruption of foraging and disabling navigation in the field. Bees affected will be unable to find their way home to the hive and die slowly after consuming a lethal dose of the insecticides.

In Europe, five neonicotinoid insecticides are approved: clothianidin, imidacloprid, thiamethoxam, acetamiprid and thiacloprid. The European Commission has closely monitored, for a number of years, the relationship between bee health and insecticides. Already in 2013, the European Commission severely restricted the use of plant protection products and seed coatings containing these neonicotinoids to protect the honey bees.

EFSA confirmed in 2016 that the outdoor use of clothianidin, imidacloprid, and thiamethoxam can no longer be considered safe. Only acetamiprid has been considered a low risk for bees by EFSA and its approval has been renewed until 2033.

Today, on April 27, 2018, the European Member States endorsed the Commission’s proposal to completely ban the outdoor use of the three neonicotinoids clothianidin, imidacloprid and thiamethoxam, and will adopt the regulation in the coming weeks.

Considering that these three neonicotinoids jointly account for a market share of more than 85% and stand for an annual turnover of several billion USD, it may have a significant impact on the revenue and shares of those companies producing them. The European market represents 11% of the global neonicotinoids market.