A new entry titled '#690: Are GM Crops Killing Bees?' has
been posted to EMFacts Consultancy.
The following article in Der Spiegel ( Germany) raises the
possibility that GM crops are killing the bees but while GM
crops are widespread in the US (about 40% I think) this is
not the case with Germany or in other European countries
where they have the same problem with rapidly disappearing
bees but little GM crops. So far the possibility of wireless
communications being the killer is not even being
considered [by most, but is highly likely].
Don
Article in Der Spiegel - International version
SOURCE: DER SPIEGEL INTERNATIONAL March 22, 2007
http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,473166,00.html
COLLAPSING COLONIES
Are GM Crops Killing Bees?
By Gunther Latsch
A mysterious decimation of bee populations has German
beekeepers worried, while a similar phenomenon in the United
States is gradually assuming catastrophic proportions. The
consequences for agriculture and the economy could be
enormous.
Walter Haefeker is a man who is used to painting grim
scenarios. He sits on the board of directors of the German
Beekeepers Association (DBIB) and is vice president of the
European Professional Beekeepers Association. And because
griping is part of a lobbyist's trade, it is practically his
professional duty to warn that "the very existence of
beekeeping is at stake."
Is the mysterous decimation of bee populations in the US
and Germany a result of GM crops?
The problem, says Haefeker, has a number of causes, one
being the varroa mite, introduced from Asia, and another is
the widespread practice in agriculture of spraying
wildflowers with herbicides and practicing monoculture. Another
possible cause, according to Haefeker, is the controversial and
growing use of genetic engineering in agriculture.
As far back as 2005, Haefeker ended an article he
contributed to the journal Der Kritischer Agrarbericht (Critical
Agricultural Report) with an Albert Einstein quote: "If the
bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would
only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more
pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man."
Mysterious events in recent months have suddenly made
Einstein's apocalyptic vision seem all the more topical. For
unknown reasons, bee populations throughout Germany are
disappearing -- something that is so far only harming beekeepers.
But the situation is different in the United States, where
bees are dying in such dramatic numbers that the economic
consequences could soon be dire. No one knows what is
causing the bees to perish, but some experts believe that the
large-scale use of genetically modified plants in the US could
be a factor.
Felix Kriechbaum, an official with a regional beekeepers'
association in Bavaria, recently reported a decline of
almost 12 percent in local bee populations. When "bee
populations disappear without a trace," says Kriechbaum, it is
difficult to investigate the causes, because "most bees don't die
in the beehive." There are many diseases that can cause
bees to lose their sense of orientation so they can no longer
find their way back to their hives.
Manfred Hederer, the president of the German Beekeepers
Association, almost simultaneously reported a 25 percent drop
in bee populations throughout Germany. In isolated cases,
says Hederer, declines of up to 80 percent have been
reported. He speculates that "a particular toxin, some agent with
which we are not familiar," is killing the bees.
Politicians, until now, have shown little concern for such
warnings or the woes of beekeepers. Although apiarists have
been given a chance to make their case -- for example in
the run-up to the German cabinet's approval of a genetic
engineering policy document by Minister of Agriculture Horst
Seehofer in February -- their complaints are still largely
ignored.
Even when beekeepers actually go to court, as they recently
did in a joint effort with the German chapter of the
organic farming organization Demeter International and other
groups to oppose the use of genetically modified corn plants,
they can only dream of the sort of media attention
environmental organizations like Greenpeace attract with their
protests at test sites.
But that could soon change. Since last November, the US has
seen a decline in bee populations so dramatic that it
eclipses all previous incidences of mass mortality. Beekeepers
on the east coast of the United States complain that they
have lost more than 70 percent of their stock since late last
year, while the west coast has seen a decline of up to 60
percent.
In an article in its business section in late February, the
New York Times calculated the damage US agriculture would
suffer if bees died out. Experts at Cornell University in
upstate New York have estimated the value bees generate -- by
pollinating fruit and vegetable plants, almond trees and
animal feed like clover -- at more than $14 billion.
Scientists call the mysterious phenomenon "Colony Collapse
Disorder" (CCD), and it is fast turning into a national
catastrophe of sorts. A number of universities and government
agencies have formed a "CCD Working Group" to search for
the causes of the calamity, but have so far come up
empty-handed. But, like Dennis vanEngelsdorp, an apiarist with the
Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, they are already
referring to the problem as a potential "AIDS for the bee
industry."
One thing is certain: Millions of bees have simply
vanished. In most cases, all that's left in the hives are the
doomed offspring. But dead bees are nowhere to be found --
neither in nor anywhere close to the hives. Diana Cox-Foster, a
member of the CCD Working Group, told The Independent that
researchers were "extremely alarmed," adding that the
crisis "has the potential to devastate the US beekeeping
industry."
It is particularly worrisome, she said, that the bees'
death is accompanied by a set of symptoms "which does not seem
to match anything in the literature."
In many cases, scientists have found evidence of almost all
known bee viruses in the few surviving bees found in the
hives after most have disappeared. Some had five or six
infections at the same time and were infested with fungi -- a
sign, experts say, that the insects' immune system may have
collapsed.
The scientists are also surprised that bees and other
insects usually leave the abandoned hives untouched. Nearby bee
populations or parasites would normally raid the honey and
pollen stores of colonies that have died for other reasons,
such as excessive winter cold. "This suggests that there is
something toxic in the colony itself which is repelling
them," says Cox-Foster.
Walter Haefeker, the German beekeeping official, speculates
that "besides a number of other factors," the fact that
genetically modified, insect-resistant plants are now used in
40 percent of cornfields in the United States could be
playing a role. The figure is much lower in Germany -- only
0.06 percent -- and most of that occurs in the eastern states
of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Brandenburg. Haefeker
recently sent a researcher at the CCD Working Group some
data from a bee study that he has long felt shows a possible
connection between genetic engineering and diseases in
bees.
The study in question is a small research project conducted
at the University of Jena from 2001 to 2004. The
researchers examined the effects of pollen from a genetically
modified maize variant called "Bt corn" on bees. A gene from a
soil bacterium had been inserted into the corn that enabled
the plant to produce an agent that is toxic to insect pests.
The study concluded that there was no evidence of a "toxic
effect of Bt corn on healthy honeybee populations." But
when, by sheer chance, the bees used in the experiments were
infested with a parasite, something eerie happened.
According to the Jena study, a "significantly stronger decline in
the number of bees" occurred among the insects that had been
fed a highly concentrated Bt poison feed.
According to Hans-Hinrich Kaatz, a professor at the
University of Halle in eastern Germany and the director of the
study, the bacterial toxin in the genetically modified corn
may have "altered the surface of the bee's intestines,
sufficiently weakening the bees to allow the parasites to gain
entry -- or perhaps it was the other way around. We don't
know."
Of course, the concentration of the toxin was ten times
higher in the experiments than in normal Bt corn pollen. In
addition, the bee feed was administered over a relatively
lengthy six-week period.
Kaatz would have preferred to continue studying the
phenomenon but lacked the necessary funding. "Those who have the
money are not interested in this sort of research," says the
professor, "and those who are interested don't have the
money."
Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan
http://www.emfacts.com/weblog/index.php?p=690
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