![]() ![]() Over the past several years, scientists have found that only about 5 percent of neonic seed coatings are taken up by crop plants. hasn’t yet taken such decisive action, it’s becoming increasingly clear that bees and other beneficial insects aren’t the only animals at risk. The evidence of harm is strong enough that the European Union has banned outdoor use of three popular neonics. ( Read a National Geographic cover story on insect declines.) Bees, essential for crop pollination, have been especially hard hit. History tells us that such broad-spectrum pesticides may have unintended consequences, and scores of studies suggest that neonics, along with climate change and habitat destruction, are contributing to the steady decline of insects across North America and Europe. ![]() Insects chew or suck on their preferred portion, then curl up and die. Deployed as coatings on seeds for crops that cover more than 150 million acres in the United States, neonics are taken up by all plant parts: roots, stems, leaves, fruit, pollen, and nectar. They’re now the most widely used pesticides in the world, effective against aphids and leafhoppers and a wide range of worms, beetles, and borers. For months, he’s been analyzing them for traces of insecticides called neonicotinoids.Ĭhemically related to nicotine, neonics, as they’re known, were developed in the 1990s as a safer alternative to more toxic, longer-lasting farm chemicals. Then he turns to the deer spleens in front of him. Surrounded by the usual lab paraphernalia-a spectrophotometer, a PCR machine, a centrifuge-Lundgren glances out the window at the sheep huddled in his pasture and a large flock of geese, chickens, turkeys, and ducks. Department of Agriculture entomologist who still does chemical analysis. Lundgren is an unusual hybrid: a working farmer interested in reforming that profession, and a working scientist, a former U.S. On an overcast January day in Estelline, South Dakota, Jonathan Lundgren zips his quilted jacket over a fleece, pulls down a wool cap, and crunches through the snow on Blue Dasher Farm to his barn, a milking parlor that he has kitted out as a biochemical laboratory. This story was produced in collaboration with the Food & Environment Reporting Network, a nonprofit investigative news organization. ![]()
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