The first harvest results of winter oilseed rape planted without neonicotinoid seed treatments have come in, and farmers are experiencing a better than usual crop – yields are higher than the 10 year average.
ADAS, the UK’s largest independent agricultural consultancy today confirmed that with 15% of the oilseed rape harvested, yields are between 3.5 and 3.7 tonnes/ha, higher than the normal farm average of 3.4.
This makes a total nonsense of the Government’s recent controversial decision to allow these banned bee-killing agrotoxins to be used in four eastern counties as an ‘emergency’ measure. Particularly concerning is the fact that most of the harvest data comes from eastern England where 40% of the crop has already been brought in.
– See more on Buglife’s website
Simple Bees 