Co-op weighs into battle to save honeybees

The Co-op has announced that suppliers of its own-brand produce will henceforth be banned from using eight pesticides "implicated" in Colony Collapse Disorder - the unexplained disappearance of millions of honeybees which has hit hives worldwide.

The supermarket chain said growers on its 70,000 acres of land in England and Scotland would not "where possible" use the neonicotinoid family of chemicals "until they are shown to be safe", as the Guardian puts it. The Co-op has, the paper notes, since 2001 "prohibited the use of 98 pesticides under its pesticide policy".

Scientific tests have suggested a possible link between one of the banned chemicals, imidacloprid, and disruption of honeybees' "sophisticated communication and navigation systems". France banned its use as a sunflower seed-dressing inseciticide ten years ago, while Germany, Italy and Slovenia last year slapped a blanket ban on the use of neonicotinoids in reponse to the honeybee crisis.

Simon Press, Co-op group senior technical manager, said: "We believe that the recent losses in bee populations need definitive action, and as a result are temporarily prohibiting the eight neonicotinoid pesticides until we have evidence that refutes their involvement in the decline."

The Co-op's pesticide ban forms part of its 10-point Plan Bee, which also includes £150,000 "for research into the impact of pesticides on the decline of honeybees in England". Co-op members and customers will benefit from a bee-friendly wildflower seed giveaway.

The Co-op's campaign does not stop at its own doorstep, however. Its head of social goals, Paul Monaghan, said the government had failed to recognise that "pesticides could be a contributing factor" in the honeybees' dramatic decline.

Elliott Carnell, coordinator of Pesticide Action Network Europe, agreed, accusing: "The government has fought against any attempts to protect bees, which pollinate a third of the average diet. It argues that banning pesticides jeopardises crop yields, but if that was the case why would a leading food retailer be introducing this measure?"

While the government has hedged its bets as to what might be responsible for bee deaths, and prefers not to mention Colony Collapse Disorder, it is not entirely indifferent to the crisis. It recently stumped £4.3m "to safeguard and undertake more research into the health of bees" following the Department for Environment, Food And Rural Affairs' (Defra) decision last year to give "higher priority" to investigating the matter.

Defra's analysis to date is the possible implication of abnormally wet weather - which may have hindered the bees' ability to collect enough food to survive the winter - coupled with the single-celled fungus Nosema, which might have taken advantage of the insects' rain-induced confinement and stressed state to spread with deadly effect.

Tax for compost heaps?

Schools and charities could soon be charged for having a compost heap under proposals slipped out by UK ministers recently.

Any UK establishment other than a private home would have to pay £50 to register with the Environment Agency every three years.

It is not clear whether allotments will be charged.

The levy, which is set to raise thousands of pounds in extra revenue for the Government, has been condemned by opposition MPs as 'bizarre'.

At the moment, it is free to register a compost heap.

But the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has put out new rules which would require businesses, schools and charities to register them every three years.

The new rules will also increase the number of places that are required to hold a waste permit, which costs £600.

The proposals have infuriated environmental campaigners who warn it would discourage people from disposing of household waste on compost heaps.

Tory environment spokesman Peter Ainsworth said: 'Penalising people for doing their bit for the environment is typical of the Government's confused and counter-productive approach.'

There are around 2553 sites in the UK which are currently registered as composting biodegradable waste.

Under the rule changes, 1685 - or 66 per cent of these - will in future require a permit at a cost of £600 each. The remainder will have to pay the £50 charge to register every three years. A Defra spokesman insisted the new rules were not yet finalised.

She added that under EU laws, organisations must have permits to carry out waste disposal. But smaller bodies can 'exempt' themselves from this by registering a compost heap.

My take: Registering my allotment compost heaps, you have to be joking! It also means that every public garden, plant nursery, and small grower will have to register. We are having to register for permission to do what we have been able to do freely for thousands of years. Now the town hall "jobsworths" will be able to order you to stop composting, if it takes their fancy.

Don't think that when, a few years later, they extend it to private homes you can just ignore the issue. Our masters have arial photographs of every building and piece of land in the UK, there will be no hiding from them. Probably, the ownership of a compost heap will be a feature of building taxes.

Tax on horse manure

A leading UK business pressure group, FPB, says it is appalled that the horse industry is to be hit with a new stealth tax - on horse muck.

Under legislation to be enforced this July by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, equestrian businesses - from livery yards to studs and riding schools - which compost muck to use as fertiliser will have to obtain a permit costing up to £500.

The FPB's Head of Research Andrew Mowlah said the legislation would hit smaller businesses hardest.

"Yet again it appears the Government has failed to conduct a proper regulatory impact assessment and therefore small firms are going to be clobbered by this legislation,' he said. "For small yards composting is a viable and much-used alternative. Our members are telling us that this new tax is absurd and has come completely out of the blue. Manure has been spread for as long as land has been farmed, it is ludicrous now to suddenly slap a stealth tax on the industry."

Mr Mowlah said the legislation came as a double whammy, as from July 1, to compost the waste businesses will need to have installed leak-proof concrete flooring beneath the muck heaps with a sealed holding tank for the liquid which runs off - all at a cost which could run into the hundreds of pounds.

Comment from FPB member:

Keith Sanders, Manager, Northcote Heavy Horse centre, Lincolnshire " Who on earth thinks of taxing horse muck? It's an absolute farce. I'll be the first to take a lorry load of dung to Downing Street to make my point. This could cost me thousands, and yet I have no visit from a Government inspector asking how it will affect me. But no doubt the legislation will create more bureaucracy and bureaucrats. But whoever thought of this legislation does not know their dung. Horse muck is not as wet as pig or cow because it is about 60 per cent straw, so there is no need to go to the hugely expensive lengths of building new concrete floors. This will cripple many horse businesses who are already struggling with the taxation burden."

Note Manure from privately kept horses is classed as household waste and will be exempt. But manure from businesses is classified as industrial waste, so the way it is kept, treated and disposed of is currently subject to the Waste Management and Licensing Regulations (1994).One of the stipulations of these regulations is that muck must be taken away by a licensed remover, unless it is composted on site for use as a fertiliser.

A muck heap of less than five tonnes will not incur a charge, but one of between five and 50 tonnes will cost £252 for the first year and £174 thereafter, while 50-400 tonnes will cost £482 for the first year and £402 each year after that. The average horse produces nine tonnes of manure a year.

My own take

Does this mean that we will find it ever harder to obtain supplies of good manure? Just as we had decided to switch over totally to horse manure after a successful experiment this last summer. We have a planet being destroyed by global warming, whilst the Government is taxing green measures that can save a terrific amount from the carbon footprint incurred by producing chemical fertilizers. It beggars belief!

Gene found to have a "barcode"

A “barcode” gene that can be used to distinguish between plant species has been identified.

DNA sequences of the gene, named matK, are nearly identical in plants of the same species.

The findings were published last month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

Co-author Vincent Savolainen, a researcher at Imperial College London and the Royal Botanic Gardens (RBG), Kew, said: “Now we have isolated the matK gene on a DNA barcode we could distinguish between species from just a small fragment of leaf.”

The research team, including collaborators from the universities of Johannesburg and Costa Rica, aims to create a genetic database of matK DNA. Scientists would then compare samples to this database and be able to identify them.

The method will make field work in threatened habitats easier. Savolainen said: “In future we’d like to see this idea of reading plants’ genetic barcode translate into a portable device… which can quickly and easily analyse any plant sample’s matK DNA… allowing almost instantaneous identification.”

He suggested the method could be used by customs officials checking if plant species were being transported illegally or for identifying plant ingredients in powdered substances such as medicines.

Savolainen added: “But it’s not the end of the story. The matK gene appears in 90 per cent of plant species. Yet there are still 10 per cent that are problematic.”

Minister for climate change and biodiversity Joan Ruddock said: “This is a great breakthrough that could save many endangered plants. I congratulate everyone involved in this project, which could have huge benefits for plant identification and conservation.”

The project was funded by the UK Government Defra’s Darwin Initiative, the universities of Johannesburg and Costa Rica, the South African National Research Foundation, RBG Kew and the Royal Society.