The Independent article about the Foodbank of Santa Barbara County and Ranch Table event dedicated to fighting hunger in our community brought to mind another ongoing threat to food production and access — the use of neonicotinoid-coated seeds in the California agricultural industry and its effect on an essential part of our food production: bees.
Neonicotinoids, or neonics for short, are among the most widely used insecticides across all industries in the US, from agriculture to home lawn care. The effects of these insecticides aren’t limited to the “pests” they claim to target. Neonic pesticides are killing sweeping populations of essential insects and pollinators — 80,000 bees are killed by just one neonic-coated seed.
The harm doesn’t end there: neonics remain in our soil and water systems for years. Worse, studies have shown that neonics cause multigenerational damage to organisms, affecting fertility, growth, and development of offspring generations which were never exposed to the pesticides. Growing up with the only pesticide-free lawn in my neighborhood, I witnessed the dramatic and tragic loss of biodiversity and decrease in pollinator populations as neonic use became more prevalent.
Neonics are now banned from California consumer shelves, but neonic-coated seeds are still permitted despite their thoroughly established dangers. To protect our bees and other pollinators, I am calling Governor Newsom and CalEPA to follow the examples of New York and Vermont in banning neonic-coated seeds in California and supporting non-profit organizations that are working hard to regulate, reduce, or remove the use of pesticides.
