Bee/Bird Toxic Wine Grape Pesticide Short Lived? Not So, Says Top UK Expert

UK Biologist Dave Goulson, of the University of Sussex, has just published research in the Journal of Applied Ecology showing that neonicotinoids - commonly used in California vineyards (as well as across the U.S. and Europe) - kill earthworms and stay in the soil for one to four years.

Goulson is one of the UK's leading conservationists and founder of the 8,000-member Bumblebee Conservation Trust.

Quoted in Nature, Goulson says. "If you apply these chemicals once a year on crops, they will accumulate. All of these studies suggest the half-life of these chemicals is between one and four years," Goulson.

While pesticide proponents often and confidently proclaim that the newer pesticides are much more targeted in their impacts, Goulson's summary states"...the current use of neonicotinoids is likely to be impacting on a broad range of non-target taxa including pollinators and soil and aquatic invertebrates and hence threatens a range of ecosystem services."

Wine grape growers used more than 47,000 pounds of neonicotinoids in California in 2011.

Just one more reason to seek out organically grown wine grapes in your wine - organic growers, unlike 90 percent of California's nonorganic growers, don't use neonicotinoids in their vineyards.

Goulson spoke at Berkeley in April of this year on the Ecology and Conservation of Bumblebees. 

He is the author of the newly published book A Sting in the Tale. You can read a review of the book from the UK's Guardian here.

The EU has imposed a two year ban on the use of neonicotinoids after initial research in Italy and other countries showed a positive impact on bee populations when the insecticides were banned. In the U.S. the EPA has decided against banning neonics.

Earth Day Barrage Set to Begin: Beware the Wine Institute's Message of "Sustainability"

The California Wine Institute's getting gussied up for Earth Day - all ready to tell you why they and their sustainability campaigns are great (they are - it's true) and to avoid the subject of pesticide use in wine grape growing in California. They've been holding webinars with vintners to help all of them communicate the message - aided by their professional marketing consultant.

And launching their Earth Day video on Youtube.


Sustainability, as defined by the industry group, consists mainly of limiting the inputs they use - water, energy (they get big rebates for going solar - rebates that taxpayers pay for), and other resources that cost them money. This is the win-win zone for the bottom line - and it gets them within the guidelines of retail giant Walmart's sustainability requirements. All good - but not the end of the story.

If only the Wine Institute would take equal interest in ridding us of the pesticides they are using - 411,000 pounds of Roundup annually. Is that sustainability? Maybe for the grapes but not for the humans.

You can see what a typical Napa vineyard shopping list at the local farm supply store is in this  2012 U.C. Davis report on wine grape growing in Napa which describes local vineyards practices:

• Twice a year, vineyard-wide application of Roundup (that's 30,000 pounds annually in Napa County) a systemic herbicide now so widespread that a 2012 German study found it in city dwellers' urine at concentrations higher than allowed in drinking water

• Fighting vine mealy bug with neonicotinoids (the chemicals most widely credited with bee colony collapse) [this week a group of British MPs added their voices to others in the EU calling for a ban]

• Spreading Rally (myclobutanil), a known reproductive toxin, annually [the insecticide was recently cited by the California Dept. of Pesticide Regulation as in need of a toxicity exposure update]

All this - in spite of the fact that between 10 and 30 percent of Napa vineyards are either certified (9%) or practicing (estimated to be another 20%) organic and don't use or need any of these inputs in order to make a tidy profit on their most-expensive-in-the-nation agricultural land.

If only the organic vintners and their professional marketing consultant were organized and speaking up - with the help of professional marketers - on Earth Day. (They don't have a YouTube video).

Two years ago when I first started asking wineries if their wines were organically grown, any that were not never said, "No." They always said, "we're sustainable."

If you ask again, why they're not organic, they'll usually say being organic costs too much, and takes too much paperwork.

I recently interviewed a prominent winery president (at a winery with more than 300 acres of certified organic vineyards) about this issue. The reply was that after all was said and done, it cost the winery about 4 percent more - in the overall cost of the winery - to grow grapes organically and be certified. Other consultants say the cost is 10% higher; others who are organic say it costs less than chemical methods.

Yes, there is paperwork, but wineries already have a lot of paperwork. Filing pesticide reports with the state is paperwork, too, and strangely nobody every mentions that. Shopping for pesticides and hiring pesticide control advisors is work and money, too - at least $100 an acre.

So beware the Earthy Day messaging barrage. Hurrah for sustainability - it's just not the end of the eco-trail. Keep asking for organic grapes in your wine.

Beekeepers Sue EPA Over Bayer Neonicotinoid Pesticides Associated with Bee Colony Collapse and Bird Deaths

Last week commercial beekeepers filed a lawsuit in U.S. Federal District Court in San Francisco charging the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for failing to ban two pesticides associated with bee deaths. The pesticides - clothiandin and thiamethoxam - are classified as neonicotinoids and are also the focus of a proposed EU ban.

The suit comes a year after commercial beekeepers filed a legal petition asking the EPA to ban clothiandon.

While most of the insecticides are used in the Midwest, the wine industry in California in 2010 contributed 2,389 pounds of clothianidin over 19, 553 acres and 537 pounds of thiamthoxam over 9,308 acres.

Bayer makes the insecticides in Germany where its use has been banned. More than $262 million worth of the neonicotinoids were sold in 2010. The insecticides were introduced in the 1990s.

France and Italy have also already banned neonicotinoids in order to prevent further harm to honeybees. The European Food Safety says that the insecticides harm bees; further research says the insecticides also harm butterflies and ladybugs.

A recently released 100-page overview of 200 studies shows the insecticides pose a serious threat to birds and persist in aquatic ecosystems. You can read the executive summary and full report here. The EPA has ignored its own scientists' warnings on this group of insecticides.

Coverage from AP said, "Experts say some beekeepers have lost up to 50% of their colonies."

Bees are responsible for pollinating 760,000 acres of almonds, which is 80% of the world's almond supply, in addition to pollinating a third of other American crops.

The suit also says that allowable levels are harmful levels of exposures.

A new peer-reviewed study released in the UK found that the insecticides makes bees fail to associate food with floral scents.

Joining the Center for Food Safety in filing the suit were four beekeepers, the Sierra Club, Pesticide Action Network, Beyond Pesticides and the Center for Environmental Health.

UPDATE: Bayer has now proposed a new program for bee health to avoid the proposed EU ban - environmentalists decry the program. See article here.

French Study Finds Pesticide Residues in Wines

Here's a top story in the news today - a French study by the Bordeaux-based lab of Pascal Chatonnet has found pesticide residues in 90% of the 300 French wines it tested.

Decanter ran the story here.

Decanter quoted Chatonnet as saying, ‘Even though the individual molecules were below threshold levels of toxicity, there is a worrying lack of research into the accumulation effect, and how the molecules interact with each other." 

What Would Rachel Do? Drink Organically Grown Wine

Next week is the 50th anniversary of the publication of Silent Spring, Rachel Carson's groundbreaking, bestselling expose of the harm pesticides do to ecosystems. Today groups like Pesticide Action Network (PAN) are asking the question, "What Would Rachel Do?"

Succinctly put, PAN's summed up the history of the last 30 years: "Chemical Cartel + Farm Lobby = 50 yrs of Pesticide Policy Paralyisis," pointing out that the farm lobby is a key political component of getting these dangerous chemicals to market through huge loopholes in the law.

From PAN: "Fact: Of the 16,000 current product registrations, 11,000 (68%) have been brought to market through conditional registration (CR), and half (5,400) of those have been conditionally registered since 2000."

Evidence is mounting that GE crops do have health dangers, as data from the first long term study (just released) shows.

Another way to celebrate:
read this new biography of
Carson

I think the best way to honor Rachel Carson's landmark work's 50th birthday would be:

1  Have a party and stock up on organically grown wines you can drink all year long, This year and every year. take a pledge that you will try to give 80% of your wine spend to organically grown wines.

2.  Ask wine growers and vintners why they are not organic and/or certified. If they tell you its too much paperwork and it costs too much, ask them if they know how much it costs or if they know that the federal government reimburses 3/4 of the cost, making them less than 4 cents a bottle in general (or $10 an acre).

3. Ask the wine managers at the shop where you buy wine from if they could have a larger local organic selection and clearly label organic (and not throw it into the "sustainable" section - a word which in this context has no meaning other than a marketing message.). For instance:
• Mission foodie haven Bi Rite Market has hundreds of bottles of imported wine, hardly any of it organic and not a single bottle of a local, organically grown (certified grapes) wine. (They do have Unti, which says they are organic but is not certified).
• Whole Foods has the sustainable wines mixed in with the organic wines - as does Berkeley Bowl.

4. Point to good models of organic wine display at these shining paragons of virtue: Ukiah Natural Foods (great organic selection and well marked) and Ashland Coop (end cap display, prime spot, featuring local and other domestic organically grown wines.). Pictures from Ashland are posted on this blog.

5. Shop at or become a Wine Club member at wineries that make wine from organically grown grapes. Think of it as your CSA for Wine - or CSW.
• Affordable wines are easy to find for $10-15 (see companion post below on Hopland Passport). 
• Fabulous wines in higher price points are also widely available: visit and/or order from Volker Eisele, Grgich Hills, Cowhorn - just to mention a few. See the list of wineries with at least one organically grown wine on the map on the second tab of the top menu on this blog.

DO something next week to make Rachel proud!

Mark Moffett on Colbert Report on Bees

I had the pleasure of seeing Mark Moffett today at a conference at U.C. Berkeley today. The Indiana Jones of insect researchers, the National Geographic photographer and Smithsonian bug expert appeared recently on the Colbert Report.

Of course, wine pesticides are endangering bees...here more about why we need bees:

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Mark Moffett
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog Video Archive

For more, see here: http://www.pollinator.org/

Bee Colony Collapse Likely Related to Commonly Used Systemic Pesticides

I don't usually blog about pesticides unless they relate to wine grapes but this story got my attention and I wanted to share it.

Dan Rather's news reports recently (in 2011) returned to examine bee colony collapse and the use of systemic pesticides, following up on an investigation it had aired in 2006.

The pesticides are suspected as the primary culprit in bee colony collapse and have been banned in a number of countries in Europe.

 In the story, there is an interview with bee researchers at UPenn who have found that bees they are looking at have as many as 38 different pesticides in them - a chemical cocktail that scientists point out has never been studied.

See the video for more. (There are three segments - interspersed with another news story).

 Especially alarming is the fact that the EPA is not moving to take action against a substance which, experts in the video say, may be responsible for the collapse of the food chain.
 
Bee Aware from Greg Stanley on Vimeo.

Organic Vineyards and Legal Liability: Case in Point

I was just recently talking to a vineyard manager who works for an organic management company, asking him what the biggest benefit of being organic was, in his opinion. He named a few of the usual reasons - soil health, longevity of the vines, and more - and then added liability to the list.

That was a new one for me.

So it shouldn't have come as a surprise to read this news story, only a few days later. Four vineyard workers were hospitalized July 5 after breathing pesticides in a 21-acre vineyard in Napa, according to the Napa County Sheriff's department, the story reported.

The department reported that the four workers, three of whom were women, had been exposed to three pesticides, including Altacor, commonly used against European grapevine moth.

The location given, the 4000 block of Big Ranch Road, is within a five mile radius of the center of Napa.

Ironically, just a month before the incident, the Napa Valley Register reported this upbeat story about how the county's grand jury released a report praising the Agricultural Commissioner's Office for its work on pesticides.

"In 2009, more than 1.54 million pounds of pesticides were administered across Napa County. Of that figure, 1.47 million pounds were applied to the county’s vineyards.

The 2009 figures represent a significant decline from what was seen in previous years, the report states.

In 1999, pesticide use in the county was just shy of 2.4 million pounds, with more than 90 percent ending up in Napa vineyards.

The pound-per-acre measurement for pesticide use in the county’s vineyards also dipped over the past decade, moving from 73 pounds in 1999 to 34 pounds in 2009.

To explain the drop off in chemical use, the report credits Agricultural Commissioner Dave Whitmer’s efforts, as well as industry trends such as organic and sustainable farming."

While it would be nice to think that organic and sustainable farming was the answer, the truth is likely more complex. Pesticides don't weigh what they used to, so trying to evaluate pesticide use on the basis of weight is probably not very precise in terms of understanding public health impacts.

Only 7% of Napa is farmed organically, so that would not explain the decade-long reduction of more than a third of the pesticide tonnage.

What would would be a closer look at the weight of newer pesticides which are far lighter than their predecessors. According to industry experts, pesticides are more concentrated than they used to be.

One would hope that a responsible expert would be found who could say more about that, before the Napa grand jury starts to celebrate its rare and under-marketed organic vintners who suffer from a near total lack of visibility. (The Napa Valley Vintners doesn't really like to talk about organic, but does promote its own sustainability "program", which hypes what is already the law of the land. In fact, on the Napa Valley Vintners web site, for every winery that has certified organic vineyards, the word organic is never mentioned. The descriptions are all "sustainable.")

Does this story mark a first in crediting them with having an acknowledged, positive impact on public health?

More importantly does anyone know a good attorney I can speak to about workers and pesticide lawsuits ? There must be a history in the wine industry of this happening. And secondly, what happened to these workers? Does anyone know?

And while I applaud the progress made so far in reducing the most toxic pesticides used in the past (DDT, etc.), and the role of the Ag Commissioner in helping to further reduce pesticide use, the current situation of pesticide use in Napa is still very serious.

Roundup's Hidden History of Birth Defects Highlighted by New Report; California Wine Grape Growers' Use Up 40% Over 18 Years

One more reason to buy organic: an international panel of scientists says regulators in Europe and the U.S. have regularly overlooked scientific research on the toxic effects of the commonly used herbicide Roundup for decades in affecting frog and chicken embryos.

(While Roundup may not be present at detectable levels in wine made from wine grapes sprayed with Roundup, the pesticides' effects on the environment are measurable.)

See coverage of the story on Huffington Post here.

The report, published online by a group called Earth Open Source, says "Scientific research published in 2010 showed that Roundup and the chemical on which it is based, glyphosate, cause birth defects in frog and chicken embryos at dilutions much lower than those used in agriculture and garden spraying."

To see where Roundup is sprayed in California on wine grapes, visit the Agricultural Pesticide Mapping Tool from the California State Dept. of Health here. To use the tool, select "Service Options" and then select "wine grapes" and "glysophate." The tool allows you to select the region you want to see. Click on any point on the resulting map and you can view data by year or by bar charts. All data is from the California Dept. of Pesticide Regulation.

Average increase of Roundup in pounds per acre (for wine grapes only) from 1991 to 2009 in selected counties:

Lake County - up 100%
Mendocino County - up 61%
Napa County - up 5%
Sonoma County - up 76%

Statewide, during the same period, glysophate use increased 40%.

The report cites data and studies from numerous peer-reviewed journals and urges regulators to reconsider permissible levels of Roundup use.

In 2009, more than 341,000 acres of California wine grapes were sprayed with more than 367,000 pounds of Roundup. The average rate of application was one pound per acre.

It's likely that the increased use of Roundup is in response to the decreased use of more toxic synthetic chemicals - i.e. growers are replacing older, more toxic pesticides with the "less" toxic Roundup.

Of course, organic wine grape growers are not permitted to use Roundup. Alas, organic growers represent less than 3% of all wine grapes grown statewide.

Update: The Pesticide Action Network has now published its story on the new report. Read it here.

Results from the California Dept. of Health's map of Roundup in California on wine grapes.