Syngenta And Bayer CropScience arrive to an agreement to collaborate with the European Union to unblock the proposal on the health of the bees

Syngenta and Bayer CropScience have proposed a plan of action to try put end to the stagnation in which it finds the European Union in relation to the health of the bees. To this situation has arrived after the European Commission did not achieve to reach an agreement between the States Members on which has to be the suitable answer to the report of the European authority of alimentary hygiene (EFSA, by his acronyms in English) in the supposed risk that the plaguicidas neonicotinoides have on the bees. John Atkin, general director of operations of Syngenta, signalled: “This integral plan contributes a valuable perspective on the health of the bees, whereas the prohibition of the neonicotinoides will not help at all to know the true cause of the problem. The prohibition of these innovative products would not save neither an alone beehive and has arrived the moment that we centre us in tackling the true causes that cause the reduction of populations apícolas. The plan bases in the confidence that have in the hygiene of our products and in our historical commitment to improve the surroundings of the bees”.

Rüdiger Scheiza, member of the board of directors of Bayer CropScience and director of the Department of Strategies and business Gestión affirmed: “Even although all the proofs signal to diverse parasites and illnesses like the real cause of the impairment of the health of the bees, are had to do all what was in our hands so that our customers trust our products. The clear fault of agreement between the European Commission and the States Members requires an audacious plan so that the agriculturalists of Europe can follow producing foods of high quality to an affordable price, at the same time that it improves the health of the bees and of other pollinators. We are convinced that we can offer a plan of these characteristics”.

The main characteristics of this plan of action are:

1. Increase significantly the creation of margins of flowers, rich in pollen, in all the European Union to provide the habitat and the essential nutrition for the bees.

2. Support the set up of a wide plan of monitoring on the health of the bees, including the detection of products neonicotinoides for the crop protection, especially in the corn, the rape, the sunflower and the cotton.

3. Set up compulsory of strict measures to reduce the risks to which are exposed the bees; the manufacturers already recommend them and the majority of the agriculturalists apply them of effective way like agricultural best practices.

4. Investment and implementation, the before possible, of new technologies to reduce the broadcasts of dust produced during seeds it of seeds treated with products neonicotinoides for the crop protection.

5. Investment in investigation and development to find new solutions to the main problems that affect to the health of the bees, between them parasitic and virus, and the realisation of wide pilot studies on a long-term basis to show his effectiveness.