New York to pass ‘green’ law that could slash jobs — and actually harm the environment

New York is on the brink of a big mistake by banning a class of pesticides critical for farmers.

Legislators, misled by environmental activists, are preparing to pass this week the inaptly named Birds and Bees Protection Act, which would prevent growers from accessing neonicotinoids — some of the safest pesticides, thanks in part to their innovative mode of application through seed coatings rather than spraying.

To make the bill less toxic, legislators amended it to allow neonic sales on a product-by-product basis if the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation provides a written justification for emergency use each year.

But this “solution” will end in disaster for New York’s growers and the food system.

How can I predict that?

For five years, an identical scenario has been playing out in Europe.

Spoiler alert: This saga ended badly for growers, birds, bees, consumers and the environment — and the same would be true in New York.

Just as the state’s activist-influenced politicians are trying to do, the European Commission in 2018 banned neonicotinoids except for emergency-authorized uses (aka “derogations”).

Anti-pesticide activists spread bee-pocalypse fears among the public, and Green Party members worked in concert to usher in anti-pesticide legislation.

These pesticide derogations were a lifeline for many growers, as there were no other options to stop some pests.

Sugar-beet growers were among those most devastated by the neonic ban.

By 2020, farmers across 10 European Union countries clamored for — and received — 21 derogations to protect their sugar-beet crops from aphids spreading beet yellows virus, a pest that decimated up to 80% of crop yields.

But Europe’s anti-pesticide activists were not satisfied, just as New York’s won’t be.

After the first derogations went through — and without any regard for the consequences — they filed lawsuits to annul them.

The European Union Court of Justice, the EU’s highest court, ruled this year in favor of the activists and made neonic derogations illegal.

Predictably, Europe’s sugar industry is in serious trouble.

Beet weevils are the pest du jour that only neonics can stop.

Thus far, they’ve destroyed 40,000 acres and 60,000 tons of sugar in Austria alone.

Some growers simply quit growing sugar beets altogether.

Sugar giant Tereos hammered another nail in the coffin by announcing it will close its sugar-refinery operations in France, slashing jobs.

A warning to New York’s agriculture industry: Your crops and livelihoods will also be threatened when the derogations end. 

Ironically, bees don’t pollinate sugar-beet plants. They are pollinated by wind, like many of New York’s major crops, including corn, wheat and potatoes.

Other major state vegetable crops, like tomatoes and peppers, are self-pollinated.

Thus the Birds and Bees Protection Act will “protect” bees from pesticide exposure on crops they don’t even care to visit.

Growers in Europe who did have alternatives simply sprayed more pesticides — usually older and less environmentally friendly chemicals.

After the neonic ban, they sprayed pesticides 1.145 million more times per season on bees, birds and the rest of the environment.

The same will happen in New York.

Instead of coating seeds with tiny amounts of pesticide and burying them in the ground where birds and bees can’t touch them, farmers will be forced to spray more pesticides indiscriminately aboveground.

These are complicated scientific issues. We need regulatory agencies like the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation to make pesticide decisions, not politicians or the activists pressuring them.

The DEC has the scientific expertise; and so far, it — along with the US Environmental Protection Agency and many other regulatory agencies throughout the world — has determined neonics are safe for farmers to use.

Neonicotinoids are not a major cause of bee death. Experts agree that varroa mites, and the many diseases they spread in the hive, are the primary threat to bees.

Since neonicotinoids were first used in the mid-1990s, honeybee populations have grown by 51,000 colonies in America, and there are nearly 21 million more beehives in the world now than in 2000.

Let’s let this sordid and costly drama stay in Europe.

New York politicians should let the state’s qualified environmental regulators make the decisions.  

Henry I. Miller, a physician and molecular biologist, is the Glenn Swogger distinguished fellow at the American Council on Science and Health. He was the founding director of the FDA’s Office of Biotechnology.