Neonicotinoids back in beet fields, a risk for bees?

They are making their comeback.

Since their ban in 2018, neonicotinoids were no longer present in French fields.

But they will most certainly be able to be planted in the coming months: the bill allowing new exemptions to the ban on neonicotinoids will in fact be presented during the Council of Ministers on Thursday.

This new text amends the 2016 law passed by Barbara Pompili, who was at the time Secretary of State in charge of biodiversity, and provides for the possibility of exemptions until July 1, 2023.

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Neonicotinoids are also known to be "bee killers"

Concretely, neonicotinoids are beet seeds coated with an insecticide film.

The beet plant grows soaked in this pesticide and when an aphid, which transmits the jaundice virus, bites it, it dies.

But these neonicotinoids also have a reputation for being "bee killers" because the substance attacks their nervous system.

For many farmers, however, since beet plants do not produce flowers, the risk to bees is excluded. 

That is not entirely correct, answer researchers from the Institute for Agronomic Research.

They explain that there are always other flowers that grow in a field or on the edge and therefore absorb the product.

The danger is not only for bees, since the substance can stay between 200 and 300 days in the soil, and can kill many insects that live in the soil, such as some beetles.

More neonicotinoids, so these are less fertile fields for future generations.

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The argument has been put on the table by several scientists, but it has not yet been adopted in the bill.

According to them, there should be at least compensation areas for the bees: for example a small alfalfa field next to a beet field to attract and feed them.