Rachel Carson would be horrified – our bees and insect-eating birds become scarcer year by year and there is overwhelming evidence pointing to neonicotinoid pesticides as a major cause, but the UK government's “Advisory Committee on Pesticides” has decided not to ban them, unlike some other countries (Michael McCarthy, 7 September). Only the agrochemical industry will rejoice. For the rest of us, food will become more costly as we lose crop pollinators and the sound and soul of our summer countryside withers and is silenced. Government should be ashamed, and there is no point paying farmers to plant “bee banks” and “nectar borders” if you then spray the bees to death.
Farmers who care, councils, schools, landowners and gardeners can at least do one thing – introduce their own voluntary bans on these CFCs in the countryside.
Author: C I Rose, Wells-next-the-Sea, Norfolk
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