pesticides

Bees are amazing little creatures, they have been around for more than 30 million years, their wings beat 190 times a second and they communicate by smells and performing special dances.

A clear majority of EU countries have supported the European Commission proposal to temporarily ban three pesticides that are scientifically shown to be harmful to bees: imidacloprid and clothianidin, produced by chemical company Bayer, and thiamethoxam, produced by Syngenta. 

In a shock to the scientific community, neonicotinoids, - or neurotoxic agricultural insecticides - have been shown in laboratory tests to cause brain damage in bees.

Actually, it wasn’t that much of a shock. There’s never been any doubt over the potential of these chemicals to harm bees - the recent controversy has been over dosage.

Evan Brooks blogs about Greenpeace East Asia’s investigation into pesticides on Tesco produce.

After three years of independent testing, produce sold at Tesco supermarkets in China continues to show levels of pesticides far above the legal limit. When is Tesco going to wake up and smell the chemically-doused produce?