Regulations could reduce Ontario’s gross domestic product by millions
Ontario regulations to curb the use of insecticide seed treatments are all cost and no benefit, says an Ottawa consultant.
RIAS Inc., which specializes in the economic impacts of regulations, prepared a report for CropLife Canada on the consequences of Ontario’s proposed regulations for neonicotinoid insecticides.
The treatments are applied to nearly all of the corn and canola seeds in North America and a portion of soybean seeds.
The Ontario government introduced new rules this spring for neonicotinoids to reduce the use of the insecticidal seed treatments by 80 percent on corn and soybean crops.
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Neonics have been linked to bee colony losses and bee deaths in Ontario, particularly in the spring of 2012 and the winter of 2013-14.
The province wants to achieve that goal by 2017 and will do so by establishing requirements for the sale and use of corn and soybean seed coated with neonics.
Farmers who want to use neonic coated seed will have to prove there is a pest infestation or a crop stand loss in a corn or soybean crop.
RIAS president Doug Blair said the neonic restrictions could reduce corn and soybean yields in Ontario by 10 percent, which would cut corn production in the province by 2.6 million tonnes a year.
Soybean production would drop by one million tonnes.
In total, it would reduce farmers’ gross income by $880 million a year.
Blair, who has written numerous reports on other Canadian regulations over the last three decades, said the proposed neonic rules are unique because they could reduce Ontario’s gross domestic product by hundreds of millions a year but provide zero economic benefit.
“It certainly looks like that to us,” he said.
“We were not able to uncover any data or analysis that would demonstrate that these regulations will create an incremental benefit,” he said.
Blair said it’s not certain that Ontario’s beekeeping industry would benefit or that crops pollinated by bees would be better off because there is no measurable relationship be-tween the regulation and bee colony numbers and performance.
“We couldn’t attribute any specific benefit of the regulation to bee health, (so) we couldn’t go any further with calculating any other benefits.”
Blair said the 10 percent yield loss estimate for corn and soybeans because of the regulations is based on the Ontario government’s thresholds for plant stand losses.
The province has said it’s acceptable to use a neonic seed treatment, provided a grower can demonstrate that insects or soil pests caused a 15 percent stand loss in corn or a 30 percent plant stand loss in soybeans.
Blair and his colleagues looked at research data, mostly U.S. findings, to calculate yield declines associated with 15 and 30 percent stand loss.
“All the academic literature on this stuff points in the same direction,” he said.
“For corn, it’s somewhere over an 11 percent loss in yield. For soybeans, it’s somewhere around 9.5 percent.”
Grain Farmers of Ontario chair Mark Brock said it’s unlikely that pests would reduce yield by 10 percent in every part of a field. Typically, pests will devastate a certain section of the crop and ignore other parts of the field.
“As a producer, I’m looking at a two or three acre (piece) that needs to be replanted because stand loss is so high, versus another area that (is fine),” said Brock, who farms near Staffa, Ont.
“That’s why these tools (neonics) are so effective, it eliminates that variability…. Compared to what our government says here in Ontario, we’ve seen the economic advantage to using them.”
The farm group has vigorously lobbied against the regulations without much success, directing much of its ire at environment minister Glen Murray.
The organization claims that the neonic ban is part of Murray’s “broader strategy to restrict modern farming practices in Ontario.”
Brock can’t understand why the province wants to fully implement the new rules by 2017.
“That’s the point we’re trying to push to government,” he said.
“Look, there isn’t a bee apocalypse. Numbers aren’t drastically dropping…. Why such an expedient time line?”
The grain growers group wants provincial officials to re-work the regulation.
“I think we need to go back to the drawing board in this whole process,” he said.
“It’s really evident they haven’t (incorporated) much of the industry thoughts … into the regulations.”
For example, the proposed rules require an independent professional pest adviser to confirm the plant stand losses or show the pest count is sufficiently high to justify the use of a neonic seed treatment.
Brock said that’s unfeasible be-cause there aren’t enough independent certified crop advisers in the province.
“They aren’t even available,” he said. “The regulation handcuffs that as well because they say (crop advisers) can’t work for a seed company. There are only about 33 independent CCAs in Ontario that can do this.”
