German Agrochemical Industry Slams EU Neonic Moratorium

Germany's agrochemical industry association IVA has taken the EU to task over its two-year moratorium on the use of neonicotioid-based insecticides, in effect since December 2013 for all but crops unattractive to bees.

Without adequate protection, IVA said, German farmers are in an unfavorable position to deal with the problems that global warming is beginning to cause. Due to the EU's "restrictive policies," it said, the problems will worsen in years to come.

No other region of the world employs such strict standards for crop protection agents, said IVA president Helmut Schramm. In future, he added, "farmers will have ever fewer products to fall back on, and the agrochemicals industry will not be able to create any new ones."

As if the ban on neonics were not enough, Schramm said the EU's temporary ban on treating seeds with neonics has made matters worse.

At a press conference during Germany's International Green Week agriculture show in Berlin, the association presented two farmers who it said had been affected negatively by the ban, including a rapeseed grower who reported that, amid the warm temperatures last winter, his unprotected crops had been ravaged by insects. In view of the meager harvest, he said farmers were faced with the choice of plowing their crops under or trying to sell the little yield they had.