
Insect 'apocalypse' in U.S. driven by 50x increase in toxic pesticides: study - whatami
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/08/insect-apocalypse-under-way-toxic-pesticides-agriculture/
======
scottlocklin
Well, we're running a giant experiment on this: the EU recently banned them.
In fact they've banned several of them and the worst uses of them since 2013.

My bet: bees might do better, but the over all insectopocalypse is due to
something else.

~~~
novaRom
The biggest issue is that the ecological costs are not reflected in economic
transactions in modern economy. We simply cannot estimate them properly,
because ecological disaster is a long slowly moving process, not very visible
at first, but very significant thereafter.

~~~
ribeyes
It's extremely difficult to tease out the ecological impact of the economy
because the Earth itself has powerful climate dynamics we don't fully
understand.

------
carapace
Slightly tangential, but I want to point out that there's a way forward
without pesticides and without economic disaster: We can switch to a
"horticultural" mode of civilization. The idea is that we use _applied
ecology_ to create curated ecosystems that have a high proportion of plants
that are agriculturally productive. (Not to be mysterious, I'm talking about
Permaculture et. al. but that term seems to upset a few people so I just say
"applied ecology" now.) "Food forest" is a search term to try..

Here's a talk "Redesigning Civilization with Permaculture" by Toby Hemenway
(RIP) where he talks about how we got into this mess and how we might get out.

[http://tobyhemenway.com/videos/redesigning-civilization-
with...](http://tobyhemenway.com/videos/redesigning-civilization-with-
permaculture/)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6b7zJ-
hx_c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6b7zJ-hx_c)

~~~
whenanother
the agriculture shills keep pushing this notion that their way of growing with
chemicals is the the most productive way when I've yet to see a study that
indicates that any of what they've done has increased crop yields.

~~~
whatshisface
If farmers couldn't increase yields they wouldn't buy all of that expensive
chemical stuff. If you could farm without buying chemicals or reducing yields,
you should go out and do it, you would put everyone else out of business and
make a killing.

~~~
matt_kantor
The article claims this at the end:

> Farms using neonics had 10 times the insect pressure and half the profits
> compared to those who use regenerative farming methods instead of
> insecticides according a 2018 study. Like agroecological farming,
> regenerative agricultural uses cover crops, no-till and other methods to
> increase on-farm biodiversity and soil health. The regenerative corn-soy
> operations in the study didn’t have to worry about insect problems, said co-
> author Jonathan Lundgren, an agroecologist and Director of the ECDYSIS
> Foundation.

> Farmers who are dependent on chemicals are going out of business, said
> Lundgren, who is also a grain farmer in South Dakota. “It’s painful to see
> when we have tested, scientifically sound solutions. Working with nature is
> a good business decision,” he says.

It links to this study as a source:
[https://peerj.com/articles/4428/](https://peerj.com/articles/4428/)

~~~
gravelc
Quoting the abstract:

>Regenerative fields had 29% lower grain production but 78% higher profits
over traditional corn production systems.

Lower yield and much more expensive for consumers is a difficult sell IMO.

There's some comments here on this study:

[http://csanr.wsu.edu/regen-ag-solid-principles-
extraordinary...](http://csanr.wsu.edu/regen-ag-solid-principles-
extraordinary-claims/)

~~~
easybee
Thank you for this. It is absolutely frustrating to hear so many comments that
isolate one factor to the exclusions of others. Profit is income minus
expenses, so if you spend very very little, you can make a profit with little
revenue. Revenue is a function of price per unit times yield,so if your prices
are comparatively high your revenue is low because your yield is very low.

Low yield has important and detrimental environmental consequences in that
far, far more land is being used to feed the same number of people. The loss
of natural habitats is an important negative consequence of our need to
produce food, so efficient land use is very important to protect biological
diversity.

Now, land use efficiency has a number of factors to consider. The use of the
crop is one, such as are we growing crops to feed animals that we eat? This is
always inefficient from slightly (say, chicken) to massively (such as beef).
So if you are championing permaculture to solve the ills of chemical
pesticides and mineral salt fertilizers, you really should focus on eating
crickets and plants, as this would have a far greater impact.

On the matter of chemical versus alternative pest controls, this is again
often subject to selective comparisons. For instance, there if insects are
ravaging your grapes you could spray a chemical pesticide that selectively
targets insects with piercing-sucking mouthparts that will plug their feeding
tube and stop damage, eventually killing the insect, or you could spray kaolin
clay and create a deterrent that may suppress enough damage to protect your
crop. Sounds ideal, right? The clay has no detrimental effect on insects, is
completely non-toxic, etc. However the chemical insecticide is applied at say
500ml per hectare, where as the kaolin requires say 25 kg per hectare and
requires two sprays to establish adequate coverage, and needs to be reapplied
after every rain, while the insecticide is systemic and residual, persisting
inside the tissue of the plant for a few weeks before being metabolized. That
means the clay is a lot more water and fuel intensive, increasing the
footprint of your operation. The 500ml of insecticide costs say $30, while the
kaolin costs around $160 for the first application and $80 each time it rains.
Before you assume the evil chemical giants are manipulating the market to
favor of their product, remember that that clay was 25kg (as compared to 500g)
-- that's a LOT more gas to transport from the quarry to your farm. So when
you look at the whole picture, that ideal seemingly zero-impact alternative
actually greatly increases water use, gasoline use, CO2 emissions, the amount
of farmland required for a similar yield, and ultimately raises food prices.

My point is that while the way we grow our food has to change, the answers are
complex. Returning to "older ways" by rejecting scientific advances will not
help us unless we are also prepared to accept a vastly lower population and
the human misery that would entail. If you really want to help, get involved
in the doing of agriculture, either in the growing, researching, or
distribution of food and help create real answers. If that is not in the
cards, then look at how you can change your use of food to create the change
you want to see. Stop eating meat, eat insects. Make sure you don't waste
food. Stop driving to the store and get your groceries delivered (a full half
of CO2 emissions comes from getting the groceries home from the store and
delivery reduces that significantly).

Most importantly, do not champion solutions as a cure-all, or denounce methods
as deadly mistakes without putting in the time and effort to justify your
position. Until then participate, learn, push the values of lower impact and
sustainability, but trust that there are many many people all through the
agricultural sector that are of the same mind and working hard to advance
those values.

------
gravelc
I'm part of a group developing RNAi-based pesticides which are topically
applied (so non-GM). They are extremely species specific; when designed
properly they can avoid even close relatives of the target insect, and the by-
product of the active ingredient is degraded RNA, which is harmless. The OECD
had a meeting on it recently to help develop a regulatory framework - link
here if interested ([https://www.oecd.org/chemicalsafety/pesticides-
biocides/conf...](https://www.oecd.org/chemicalsafety/pesticides-
biocides/conference-on-rnai-based-pesticides.htm)).

In my opinion, if these kinds of products are successful, they'll massively
reduce a major adverse environmental impact of farming. They also offer a non-
GM approach to combating viruses, and are far safer than broad-spectrum
insecticides, synthetic and organic alike.

~~~
superpermutat0r
These products can only be successful if tested for several generations.

Pesticides also had a similar narrative and ended up being used in large
quantities. Their effects on environment and human health are only discovered
today and were unimaginable before.

It was insanely unscientific to allow massive pesticide use and it would be
insanely unscientific to allow RNAi-based pesticides without testing them for
decades if not more.

~~~
gravelc
As dsRNA is ubiquitous in nature, I would disagree. There is no equivalence
with synthetic pesticides when it comes to the active ingredient. There's no
new molecular structure, no genetic modification, no new protein produced.
It's chemically identical to what you consume every day. It doesn't hang
around in the environment.

The status quo is we keep doing what we are currently doing for decades. The
risks of doing that are far greater in my opinion.

~~~
mhkool
with Roundup that story was "it only interferes with the shikimate pathway"
and now we know that it is not true.

You simply cannot give any guarantee whatsoever that the dsRNA-based poison
that you consider safe, really is safe or has unforeseen fatal effects.

You should read more about agriculture and look at the many success stories of
farmers who produce in large scale without using poisons. Then you might
understand that there is no need for poisons.

~~~
gravelc
Provide me an example then. Organic pesticides that can be used on
organically-certified farms are still poisons. White oil, soap spray etc. is
all a poison if you're an insect.

I don't know of any modern production system that's free of poisons (if you
want to refer to poisons as anything that kills an insect, which seems to be
the case), but willing to be educated.

~~~
labawi
Organic, GMO, dsRNA or whatever, pesticides are overused and modern production
systems are the problem. Typical modern farming kills the soil and everything
on it. Pesticides just speed it up, directly and as an enabler.

As an example without soap, a friend has a garden. Call it holistic,
permaculture or whatever. The same plants grow twice as big in his garden
compared to neighbor's, because he tends to the plants, the soil and the
garden using modern knowledge. No spraying. Lots of mulch, diversity,
planning...

------
jlangenauer
If I ever get rich enough to do so, I'm going to buy some land somewhere -
perhaps old farming land that's no longer profitable, and just let it return
to nature. Let the trees and bushes grow, let the insects, birds and whatever
else breed there.

I'm beginning to think that's one of the best things one could do for the
planet right now.

~~~
thaumaturgy
This is exactly what your national and state parks systems do, along with all
manner of other protected wilderness.

The wonderful thing about the system that's already in place is that you can
contribute to it without being wealthy, just by visiting any of them for a day
and paying the entrance fee. As an additional perk, you get to visit all of
that protected wilderness, while other people have maintained it for you, and
you get to increase the total visitation numbers which in turns helps to keep
this and other protected wilderness secure for the future.

Go out and enjoy your local public lands.

~~~
cardamomo
+1 for parks and protected wilderness! If we want public lands to play a large
part in turning around our worldwide ecological crisis, I think we need to
devote more resources, money, and land to the issue. I am intrigued by
endeavors, like the Half-Earth Project ([https://www.half-
earthproject.org/](https://www.half-earthproject.org/)), that seek to restore
ecologies on a very large scale.

------
tim333
France probably shows the way forward:

"France is the first country to ban all 5 pesticides linked to bee deaths"
[https://inhabitat.com/france-is-the-first-country-to-ban-
all...](https://inhabitat.com/france-is-the-first-country-to-ban-all-five-
pesticides-linked-to-bee-deaths/)

~~~
lazyjones
Unfortunately, this will just increase imports from countries that don't ban
them and make life harder for local farmers. It's the blessing of free trade
based on lowest common denominators.

~~~
justinator
Maybe, maybe not. France does have a history of banning imports of fruits that
contain pesticides it itself bans.

------
ben_w
I have always been surprised that anyone is surprised that an insecticide is
responsible for the widespread deaths of insects.

I assume there is some reason (not immediately obvious to an outsider like me)
why it should be surprising, but all these stories feel like “REVEALED: wet
pavements caused by spraying WATER on them!”

~~~
choeger
Well, I would have assumed that the usage of insecticides decreased in the
last decades. At least I never had the impression that it increased massively.

~~~
SmellyGeekBoy
Was the lack of insects not a clue?

------
mhandley
The EU banned field use of neonicotinoid pesticides from the start of this
year. Is there evidence yet that insect populations within the EU are
recovering this year? It's too early for scientific publications to have come
out, but if you live in an agricultural area of the EU, have you observed a
difference?

~~~
korpiq
1000 days in circulation means we'll have to wait at least 4 summers to start
seeing a change, I'd wager. Also, it might depend on where there are different
types of insects currently, and how successful they happen to be in
reproduction and spreading over time.

~~~
whichquestion
Since neonics have a half-life of ~30 days when exposed to sunlight (unclear
if that’s continuous exposure or what), it could be that we see some
statistically significant improvements sooner than the 1000 days.

~~~
hedora
I think they hang around in the soil and waterways (where insects live) much,
much longer than the UV exposed half-life.

Also, I’d imagine it will take ecosystems multiple seasons (so years) to
rebound and reach equilibrium.

------
romaaeterna
Neonicotinoids are new since 1994, so they get pointed to as the cause of
Honeybee collapse, because what else could it be?

Well, a lot of things can cause a decline in insect populations, including
non-human mediated things like new diseases, new parasites, or new
competitors.

And there are some good reasons to think that neonicotinoids are unlikely to
be a serious cause after all.

[https://i.imgur.com/HaWyRr7.png](https://i.imgur.com/HaWyRr7.png)

What's the cost of getting this wrong? You make farming more expensive
overall, which means more CO2 emissions to grow the same amount of food, if
you go in for that sort of thing.

~~~
vkou
> Well, a lot of things can cause a decline in insect populations, including
> non-human mediated things like new diseases, new parasites, or new
> competitors.

Which may affect a few species. But not insects all across the board.

> What's the cost of getting this wrong? You make farming more expensive
> overall...

1\. Farming relies on pollinating insects. Insect die-off is a great way to
make it more expensive.

2\. What is the cost of dumping poison into our biosphere, without having
_any_ idea of what the short and long-term consequences are?

~~~
sixstringtheory
I’m flabbergasted as to why this comment is downvoted. They’ve simply provided
some counterpoints and asked a question. That’s how discussion and debate
work. Maybe they’re wrong and there are good counter-counterpoints, but if so
you should provide them instead of downvoting.

I have to say I agree with their points and reiterate their question, so I’d
like to see some actual responses if any can even be made.

Furthermore, positioning increased insecticide use as ameliorating climate
change is just madness.

------
bryanlarsen
The article is about neonictinoid pesticides. Lots of comments here about
roundup and other herbicides, which is almost completely unrelated. The
connection between insect death and a pesticide designed to kill insects is
pretty clear. The connection with a widely tested herbicide designed to kill
broad leaf plants is pretty tenuous.

------
dekhn
It is soooo painful watching non-biologists debate pesticide impact based on
watching biased, nonscientific reports. In the same way it's easy to train an
ML model that is garbage, but you have to an expert in ML to understand why,
it's easy to make mistaken conclusions with complex systems like
biology/agriculture.

I see comments below like "pesticides are bitter and that's why vegetables
grown with pesticides are bitter". That's a pretty odd conclusion, given that
many vegetables contain bitter compounds already...

Please try to use actual logic, data, and science, not trivially disprovable
claims.

~~~
aszantu
wheat and corn aren't bitter, still they have natural pesticides called
lectins.

Strawberries are sweet still they have tannins which are toxic to humans.

Some green plants taste sweetish or salty, yet they contain oxalates which can
damage internal tissues and organs, joints and bones.

~~~
dekhn
Hi, I am unable to find any literature supporting strawberry toxicity.

(also it's not clear if you're trying to refute my point or not).

------
mikorym
The wording is a bit tricky, so one has to pay attention. 1) they are talking
specifically about neonicotinoid pesticides and 2) this is because this is one
of the pesticides that are known to have a disproportionately detrimental
affect on bees.

There is an aspect of farming that is not discussed much in popular articles
which is that of the _timing of application_. I believe that this is a
concrete deliverable that both saves time and money and is feasible.

------
chiefalchemist
Not to jump slightly off topic, but it boggles my mind how this topic (i.e.,
toxins) has not been included in the (cost of) healthcare "debate" in the USA.
How did health of the individual - which is a function of lifestyle and
environment - become completely disconnected from the cost of trying to
maintain that individual as a productive member of society?

Obesity gets a free pass. Sedentary gets a free pass. Toxins in the
environment gets a free pass. Etc. What are (my fellow) Americans reading,
watching, and talking about if these things this simple are completely foreign
to them?

~~~
hedora
A small number of people are watching large amounts of money flow into their
personal checking accounts and campaign fundraisers, and they decide which
health and safety issues to focus on.

------
blodovnik
There’s no surprise here is there?

We, as a society, poison pretty much everything as a standard part of the
agricultural process.

The outcome -the _goal_ \- of that is of course, death of vast numbers of
insects.

Mission accomplished. It’s a success story, strangely.

The only thing that seems weird to me is how society was so easily convinced
that soaking all our food in poison is OK and not a problem all good thumbs
up. That’s _really weird_.

~~~
obituary_latte
Is it that society was convinced? Or was/is it that it is more “out of sight,
out of mind”? I think for the layperson, little matters other than how much
does it cost? If there is some invisible but safe-for-us chemical that
increases yield and decreases cost, all the better for us, right?

I think this is one of the great things to come out of the invention of the
web. We are becoming better informed and this kind of information is becoming
more prevalent. It’s becoming much harder for these big corporations to hide
these negative side effects (insect decline, Round-Up cancers etc) and we as a
population are becoming more aware of the negative side effects of our imprint
on the world.

~~~
rollthehard6
Reminds of all those times we are told that 'customers demanded X', as if we
all stood outside supermarkets with placards saying, "We demand huge
strawberries that don't taste of anything". The market does what helps the
market, it often isn't good for people or the planet they inhabit - that's the
story of our current era and customers need to demand change on that basis.

~~~
jimhi
We did demand X though. The supermarkets had both tasteless strawberries and
organic ones and we made our choice. Many supermarkets still have organic ones
and we still pick the cheaper, larger, less tasty one.

~~~
nobodyandproud
I pay a premium for tasty, often seasonal fruit like strawberries and peaches
because the difference in taste is night and day.

One tastes better than candy. The other will teach kids not to eat fruit.

A tip: Use your nose to sniff and distinguish between what’s ripe and tasty
and what’s merely visually appealing.

~~~
lonelappde
Why don't we care that fruit that is "better than candy" was genetically
engineered over centuries to be full of unhealthy amounts of sugar?

Modern grocery fruits are not naturally healthy.

~~~
nobodyandproud
The fiber, the general high water content, pectin, and vitamins make ripe
fruit a superior choice.

------
thinkingkong
Its almost as though were doing this massive unconscious experiment where we
take every natural process, call it an economic externality, then proceed to
slap a price on it by building technology that mimics it. What replaces the
service bees provide?

~~~
timClicks
Sure enough, there are jobs for pollinating cash crops by hand. Vanilla has
been like this for decades.

------
lettergram
Although I have no evidence for it, living in rural America - I’ve noticed a
similar increase in allergies and severeness in allergies increase the region.
Personally, I’d like to see some meaningful independent research there.

------
jtdev
I’d be interested in seeing the rate of gastrointestinal disorder in the U.S.
in relation to this increase in pesticide use. I can’t imagine that ingesting
these pesticides is good for ones microbiome...

------
WaitWaitWha
Studies always tout honeybee population decline.

First, honeybees (apis mellifera) are non-native to North America.

As beekeeping history buff (my appeal to auth), the decline in my (unpopular)
opinion is little to do with pesticides. It has to do with change on how bees
are over-wintered and propagated, and with insufficient knowledge of
beekeeping.

Current practice is to "split" hives after last harvest, and then over-winter
them, cutting their strength in half. Prior to the 1960s, the practice was to
"combine" the hives after harvest, and then over-winter them, doubling their
strength.

This is significant, as splitting hives reduces the hive chances to survive
significantly. Less workers, less collection for the remainder of the season,
less housekeeping, less chances to resist pests & ilnesses, less heat
generation during winter.

The reason for splitting is the promise of nearly doubling the hives in just
one year.

Unfortunately the beekeeping expertise curve is very left-skew of the median.
Most have less than 3 hives, less than 3 years of expertise. This additionally
reduces the chances of the split, and now weakened hives' survival. Of course,
when spring comes and they hives are found dead, no one will admit to killing
them. It must have been the pesticides.

Anecdotally, from beek meetings some keepers are going "all natural" with no
assistance to the hive from small hive beetle, wax moth, varroa & trachea
mites, etc. Almost all those hives are now dead. But, not only dead also
potentially re- and infecting other beeks' hives despite their best efforts.
This is identical to the same thinking as anti-vaxers.

Sure; I know first hand pesticides can kill entire hives. But, in my opinion
it is not the primary reason.

~~~
hisnameisjimmy
The article points out that bees are only used as a proxy for all insects and
that second-order effects like significant declines in insect-eating birds
align with neonic usage.

Your points about bees may be true, but I think they talk about bees
specifically because popular culture cares about bees as pollinators and
doesn't harbor much sympathy for other insects.

~~~
WaitWaitWha
You might be right. Just sad all around. I have a soft, fuzzy spot for
bumblebees, in general, for Corbiculate bees. There are just so many pleasant
little buggers.

------
mrfusion
It’s so ironic that all the annoying insects are untouched or possibly worse:
mosquitos, wasps, flies, roaches, termites, fire ants.

~~~
maxerickson
Here (in a small town) the flies have gone from prevalent to a minor nuisance.

My guess is that the trashcans for the automated garbage trucks having lids is
the bigger factor though.

Still lots of biting flies in the woods.

------
peacetreefrog
Does anyone else view this as good news? I had heard speculation that the
large insect die offs were due to climate change, but this seems much more
treatable.

------
EGreg
How did they realize it’s this rather than, say, cellphone signals scrambling
the insects’ navigation?

------
georgebarnett
I do wonder sometimes when self preservation will kick in and put a stop to
this kind of stupidity.

I mean - surely the executives of those companies eat food right?

Not to mention the lawsuits as big ag realises that their cash cows have been
killed by an one of their suppliers products.

~~~
esarbe
The problem is that the massive amount of money generated by the criminal
exploitation of the eco-system pretty much isolates these people from the
consequences of their actions.

At least until the starving plebs come after them with pitchforks.

------
OrgNet
ultimate robots will be designed using insects anatomy... I hope that they
don't all disappear

------
sudoaza
So much for the "GMO reduce pesticide use" scam.

------
aszantu
no worries, they'll come back when they have adapted xD that's when they're
gonna eat all the crops

------
patientplatypus
I'm straight up convinced at this point that in the next few years we're going
to have a complete collapse of the food web. Just one day, no food will grow.

For example, swine flu (from factory farm conditions) and a huge reduction in
apples (from climate change) is causing price spikes in China -

[https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/13/chinese-consumers-buy-
fewer-...](https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/13/chinese-consumers-buy-fewer-apples-
as-prices-soar.html)

And that's just one I've heard today.

We're in so, so much trouble.

------
kingkawn
The arrogance of this environmental genocide will haunt us for generations

------
cowmix
_THIS_ is why I'm sick of people complaining that pro-organic consumers are
"anti-science". Many pro-organic people, like myself, are for organic food
because of many reasons including IP issues and pesticide use. Individual
piece of food made from conventional processes might be fine to eat but it
doesn't mean there is not tons of collateral damage to the environment or our
society in general.

------
kiterunner2346
From the article:

“This is the second Silent Spring. Neonics are like a new DDT, except they are
a thousand times more toxic to bees than DDT was,” Klein says in an
interview."

Rachel Carson's conclusions in "Silent Spring" were never proven to be correct
- nonetheless DDT was restricted by EPA (by bureaucratic mandate rather than
by reference to convincing scientific proof).

DDT should be brought back in the USA.

~~~
ncmncm
DDT was, and is, toxic to many other animals, notably birds, and very long-
lasting in ecosystems.

Anyway it doesn't work on ag pests anymore. They evolved to tolerate it. Birds
didn't.

------
mynameishere
Seems like the cherry on top of increased crop yields.

Has the "apocalypse" had any major negative effects? It's certainly had major
positive effects. What if insects went away completely? Certain plants
wouldn't pollinate and bats would starve and corpses would take longer to
decay. But what is the real problem here?

I just remember as a kid being tormented--absolutely tormented--by insects.
And those weren't even the disease-carrying kind of insects.

------
macawfish
When people talk about patriarchy, colonialism and white supremacy, they're
talking the attitudes of domination and control that created this horrid
situation. I'd encourage anyone who hasn't studied these concepts to seriously
look into them deeply.

