Evidence of meeting #44 for Agriculture and Agri-Food in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was corn.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4 p.m.
Conservative
LaVar Payne Conservative Medicine Hat, AB
Okay.
You just heard the other panel members talking about the problem they've had with the corn. Have any of the western producers faced the same situation, do you know?
4 p.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Honey Council
This year I have not heard of any. Certainly if you go on the PMRA website, the same issue was raised in Quebec last year. The case studies and the reports are on the PMRA website. They did indicate that there was a probable cause.
4 p.m.
Conservative
LaVar Payne Conservative Medicine Hat, AB
Okay.
Have you heard anything about this particular seed being used in the U.S., and has that had any effect down there as well?
4 p.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Honey Council
The seed treatment is a family of treatments, a family of insecticides that is apparently used in the States, and there is a bunch of research out there. I think the other three panel members have been impacted by this directly, and they're probably better versed in the direct effects it has had on them.
4 p.m.
Conservative
LaVar Payne Conservative Medicine Hat, AB
Okay. Do other panel members want to comment on anything in the U.S.? Is this particular to one type of seed for corn or are there others?
Go ahead, anybody.
4 p.m.
Owner, Ferguson Apiaries
We have experience with one at the moment, because the corns went in first. They're using the same type of poison on soybeans, and there are 22 different brand names that they use on these poisons. It's an neonicotinoid or an imidacloprid, and they break down into more deadly types of poison. From what we've read and all the information we have, they change.
There's a straight indication that these are the ones that are killing things off. All of us and most of the beekeepers have noticed over the last few years that there's been some sort of a slight kill-off, but we couldn't trace it to any place and didn't know what it was from. It wouldn't be that there'd be the numbers of bees dying off, but you'd see dead bees in front of the hive, and a hive doesn't want dead bees in front of it. It's just a natural defence mechanism that it has. It wants to clear everything out of the front of the hive so that predators don't know where it is. You'd see that in a tree or something like that in the natural circumstance. They would make sure of that. They don't want dead bees around the hive, because those would give an indication of where they're living. So they have a natural defence mechanism that way.
All I can say is that as far as we know, it is connected to the poison. There was a webinar put on by the U.S. I can't remember the name of the state that put it out. Was it Purdue?
4 p.m.
Owner, Ferguson Apiaries
I don't have the link to it here, but they showed how it was killing bees and they told us some facts that were rather scary about the stuff.
There's enough poison on one corn seed to kill 100,000 bees. It takes two nanograms of this poison to kill a bee. The air and dust coming out of the sprayers are 700,000 times stronger than that. I looked at those figures when I first heard them and I thought somebody was just saying that, but having seen the webinar, I have to take the word of the researchers who did that. It wasn't just somebody spouting off. I could see this stuff was pretty potent.
Just as a note, the EPA has linked this stuff to also affecting warm-blooded animals, and some of the things it's doing to them are quite horrendous.
4 p.m.
Conservative
4 p.m.
President, Munro Honey & Munro's Meadery
I've talked to some beekeepers down in the States. I was talking to a David Hackenberg down there. He said that in New York State about 1,900 hives are affected, and Michigan is having problems. All across the Corn Belt beekeepers are actually moving out of those areas to try to get away from it. It's a major problem.
4 p.m.
Liberal
Frank Valeriote Liberal Guelph, ON
Thank you, witnesses, for coming today to discuss the dilemma you're facing. Can you tell the committee what percentage of food production—
4:05 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Larry Miller
Frank, sorry, but Mr. Schuit was just going to add a comment, and then I'll go to you.
4:05 p.m.
President, Saugeen Country Honey Inc.
I've seen how when they plant corn they have these air seeders that blow the corn down, and the residue of the chemical blows upwards and it goes airborne.
My thinking is that when this chemical goes airborne, it also lands on the land again, and then when we get high winds and so on, they blow it up again. So we're getting a continuous reaction of this chemical going airborne.
My boy just called me before I came into the meeting and he just about cried, because he's in the yard, and they're all dead. They're dying. I just don't know what to do. We love our business. This boy is 17 and he loves it. He just doesn't know what to do.
4:05 p.m.
Conservative
4:05 p.m.
Liberal
Frank Valeriote Liberal Guelph, ON
Thank you all for coming.
I want to express my regret for the circumstances in which you find yourselves and have caused you to come before our committee today.
Can any of you tell the committee what percentage of our food production is reliant on bees and pollination? Can anyone tell me?
Mr. Ferguson.
4:05 p.m.
Owner, Ferguson Apiaries
We had something put together by our past business administrator, the OBA.
4:05 p.m.
Liberal
4:05 p.m.
Owner, Ferguson Apiaries
About 90% of the plants require insect pollination. Globally, it's $400 billion, and 75% of this pollination occurs through honeybees.
4:05 p.m.
Liberal
Frank Valeriote Liberal Guelph, ON
You can submit it later to our clerk. Perhaps he can use it for our edification and our report.
“The growing consensus among researchers”, and I'm reading now from a report we've received from the Library of Parliament, “is that multiple factors such as poor nutrition and exposure to pesticides, particularly to neonicotinoids”—the one you mentioned—“used to coat corn seeds, can interact to weaken colonies and make them susceptible to a virus-mediated collapse”.
That is consistent with what you're telling us today.
I'm just curious. Is that applied after the seed is spread, or is it applied to the seed before it's planted?
Mr. Schuit.
4:05 p.m.
President, Saugeen Country Honey Inc.
The seed itself is coated with the chemical. When it goes down into the ground, it's forced by air. When the air goes down, it causes, I think.... I've seen it. When they start up the air compressor, the dust and chemicals go airborne, and the winds take them about three miles.
I have hives dying in the centre of the bush.