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gewg_ writes:

Agriculture.com reports:

Neonicotinoids Provide Minimal Soybean Yield Help.

The class of soybean pesticide seed treatments about which speculation has swirled on its impact on the decline of critical pollinator populations in the U.S. has now been deemed "of little or no benefit" to the crop, federal officials said [October 16].

Leaders of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced [October 16] a long-term study of neonicotinoid seed treatments they say have been "linked to a wide range of impacts on pollinators and are a driving factor in bee population declines" has shown the class of chemicals have basically no influence on soybean yield and, in turn, profitability.

[...][The bureaucrats were] quick to say the findings are limited to soybean production, of which 30% of the nation's acres [ ] are typically treated with a neonicotinoid insecticide, many of them "prophylactic," or preventative in nature