Are Neonicotinoid Pesticides Really Safe? Bees Prove It Better Than the Experts

Editor's note: "Sociology of Food and Farming: Starting from the Perspective of Place and Life," a reader compiled jointly by several Japanese food and farming experts, offers a systematic perspective and case-by-case discussion of various food and farming issues, giving readers a chance to transform once again from consumers into citizens and reclaim the autonomy to act. The following article is excerpted from the book and published with permission from "Kai Xue Culture."

By Reiko Mizuno (Director, NPO Dioxin and Environmental Hormone Measures National Conference)

The Course of Pesticide Development: Gradual Evolution from Organochlorines

More than half a century has passed since humans began using pesticides. At first, new pesticides all emphasized excellent efficacy and safety, but the results after decades of use proved that many pesticides are dangerous, and their credibility was destroyed.

The most representative example is organochlorine pesticides. At the time, DDT was regarded as a dreamlike pesticide, and the developer of DDT was even awarded the Nobel Prize for it. But later it was gradually discovered that its stubborn persistence, bioaccumulation in organisms, and resistance to decomposition cause severe harm to both living things and the environment. By 2001, countries around the world had banned the use of most organochlorine pesticides, considering organochlorine pesticides to be POPs (persistent organic pollutants).

The pesticides that became mainstream after organochlorine pesticides were organophosphates, carbamates, pyrethroids, and the like. These pesticides were welcomed by countries around the world after the 1970s. Their main feature was that they decompose relatively easily in the environment and are relatively unlikely to accumulate in the human body, and experts declared them safe and free of harm. But later it was still found that they all in fact have dangerous neurotoxicity.

These pesticides interfere with the action of acetylcholinesterase, which the human body uses to break down the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, and therefore they are toxic to insects and to mammals including humans, disrupting their bodily functions.

The Arrival of "Neonicotinoid Pesticides" Regarded as Safe and Reassuring, Sweeping the Market

In short, before the 1990s, three major types of pesticides - organophosphates, carbamates, and pyrethroids - monopolized 80 percent of the crop insecticide market for a very long period. Later it was found that the effectiveness of these pesticides gradually declined, pests developed resistance, and pesticide companies had no choice but to develop new pesticides and launch neonicotinoid pesticides. So-called "neonicotinoid insecticides" mainly refer to substances containing new nicotine-type compounds; their action is similar to the nicotine contained in tobacco, and they are named for that reason.

Nicotine is an acute poison, and its toxicity is no less than that of potassium cyanide (acute toxicity: median lethal dose of 10 mg/kg, while nicotine is 50 to 60 mg/kg), but pesticide manufacturers vigorously claimed that the pesticides they sold had greatly reduced toxicity, would only kill pests, would not harm human health, and could exert a sustained effect with just a small amount. Under these circumstances, neonicotinoid pesticides, recognized as "safe and reassuring" pesticides, rapidly monopolized the market after the 1990s.

The neonicotinoid pesticides that can now be identified are mainly seven kinds: Dinotefuran, Thiamethoxam, Thiacloprid, Nitenpyram, Imidacloprid, Acetamiprid, and clothianidin. Domestic shipment volume in Japan increased about threefold in the 15 years from 1996.

In Europe and the United States, neonicotinoid pesticides are mainly used for seed sterilization of crops, but the practice unique to Japanese farmers is to use them for sterilization in rice seedling boxes, and currently about more than 60 percent of farmers practicing conventional farming use this method. In addition, from June to August in summer, the rice heading season always attracts stink bugs to bite, and the rice turns brown (spotted rice). To reduce this problem, Japanese farmers have continued for many years to carry out nationwide aerial spraying of neonicotinoid pesticides.

Neonicotinoid pesticides were later also used as insecticides for garden flowers and plants and household building materials. Not only that, household insecticides that can kill cockroaches, fruit flies, and termites also use this ingredient; pet insecticides not only use neonicotinoid pesticides but are also combined with the equally dangerous systemic pesticide Fipronil, mainly to kill pets' fleas and cattle ticks, among others.

Mass Honeybee Deaths Reveal the Danger of Neonicotinoid Pesticides

The reason people began to become alert to the danger of neonicotinoid pesticides was mainly the accidental mass deaths of honeybees around the world. Starting in the mid-1990s, European countries repeatedly saw mass honeybee deaths and disappearance phenomena, and it turned out that the cause was the use of neonicotinoid pesticides to disinfect seeds such as corn and sunflowers, leading to mass honeybee deaths, or loss of directional sense so that they could not fly back to the hive. This strange phenomenon, which past pesticides would never have produced, occurred all over the world.

Afterward, research found that the harm of neonicotinoid pesticides was not limited to honeybees, and the situation became increasingly obvious. Therefore, not only in Europe and the United States, but even Japan began to worry that such pesticides would cause damage to the ecosystem as a whole, including birds and insects. Not only honeybees but also many kinds of insects died, and birds that feed mainly on insects naturally died as well, so damage to the ecosystem was inevitable.

Aerial Spraying Causes Pesticide Poisoning

Fearing that neonicotinoid pesticides harm human health, European countries announced in 2013 a two-year ban on three ingredients: Clothianidin, Imidacloprid, and Thiamethoxam. In fact, people have continuously been harmed in various places by aerial spraying of these agents, but Japan has not yet recognized the harm of these pesticides to the human body. Perhaps many people do not know that even by 2013, there were still as many as 2,500 unmanned helicopters in all of Japan spraying pesticides from the air over farmland and forests across the country.

Even in densely populated areas, the concentration of neonicotinoid pesticides used in aerial pesticide application is still quite high (the stock solution is diluted 8 times, about 100 times higher than ground spraying). In Nagano Prefecture, aerial spraying also caused kindergarten children to suddenly become physically abnormal, writhing on the ground in pain all over their bodies, and developing symptoms such as headaches and abdominal pain.

Japan's "Pesticide Tribal Faction" Refuses to Apply the "Precautionary Principle"

In April 2013, a Japanese magazine called "Choice" published a report titled "We Must Drive Out the Pesticide Tribal Faction and Get Rid of Harmful Neonicotinoid Pesticides." The report criticized the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries for colluding with the pesticide industry, with the government backing pesticide makers. The author accused officials of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries and scholars in their pay of deleting and concealing research results that concretely showed the danger of neonicotinoid pesticides.

The article emphasized that the huge organization, the Japan Agricultural Cooperatives (JA), kept claiming that neonicotinoid pesticides were safe and could be used with peace of mind, and the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare was in the same camp, always setting the standard values very high so that farmers would not exceed residue standards even if they used large amounts of pesticides.

In Japan, government agencies and pesticide companies form an interest community and collude with each other as the "pesticide tribal faction." This unhealthy system does not take the lives of citizens into account, and it continues to block the passage of reasonable pesticide regulations.

The law has what is called the "precautionary principle," which means that even if danger is not yet fully demonstrated at present, as long as a disaster situation arises that is usually difficult to compensate for or remedy, the law allows victims to take "precautionary measures" to remove acts and sources that may cause danger.

Pesticides are a similar situation. If pesticides suspected of possibly harming human health could be regulated and controlled in advance, harm to living things and people's health should be avoidable. In December 2013, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) published a research report confirming that neonicotinoid pesticides hinder fetal brain nerve development, so we hope that Japan can also ban neonicotinoid pesticides in accordance with the "precautionary principle."

Sociology of Food and Farming: Starting from the Perspective of Life and Place