Publication - April 29, 2014
The report shows how Bayer and Syngenta try to influence the political debate on neonicotinoids with unscientific methods and with the aim to secure their profits.
Following the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) temporary ban on neonicotinoids last December, Bayer Crop Science and Syngenta hired the think-thank Humboldt Forum for Food and Agriculture (HHFA) to analyse the impact of a ban on neonicotinoids seed treatment, fearing to lose profit through the ban.
The ignorance of existing data is a central theme within the whole misinterpretation of the bee death from the big companies. Neonicotinoids have long been suspected to cause, along with other factors, a massive decline in wild and managed bee populations around the world.
The keyfindings of the Greenpeace assessments are that the projected yield losses due to a ban on neonicotinoids are presented without any empirical evidence to justify them, the scenarios are not realistic and the methodology adopted as well as the assumptions made are poorly described. This shows that the allegations made by Bayer and Syngenta to lobby against a ban on bee-harming pesticides have to be considered fiction rather than science.
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