February 19, 2016
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Protecting pollinators demands diligence
By CAROL RYAN DUMAS
Capital Press
TWIN FALLS, Idaho —
Colony collapse in honeybees
came to the fore in 2006, but
no one still knows for sure ex-
actly what’s causing it.
There’s been a lot of inger
pointing, but it appears to be
a multitude of things working
together.
And with pollinators essen-
tial to all lowering plants and
crops, it’s everyone’s job to
protect them, Ronda Hirnyck,
University of Idaho extension
pesticide coordinator, told pes-
ticide applicators during the
Agri-Action farm show last
week.
Threats include viruses,
mites, parasites, pathogens,
pesticides, lack of food, and
fatigue. With current applica-
tion practices, pesticides are a
minimal risk to bee health, but
no one knows how much they
might be contributing to the
overall decline, she said.
“Maybe we’re doing too
good of a job on weeds (or)
are they being inadvertently
exposed to sublethal effects?”
she said.
Pollinators need the nutri-
tion from lowers, including
lowering weeds. And if bees
are already weak from other
causes, inadvertent exposure
to pesticides might put them
over the edge, she said.
More than $15 billion
worth of U.S. crops depend
on honeybees alone, and 80
percent of all lowering crops
require pollination. In addition
to bees, pollinators include
Monarch butterlies (also in
decline), insects, wasps, hum-
mingbirds and bats, she said.
“They play a huge roll,
whether it’s in the backyard
or out in the mountains,” she
said.
The approach to protecting
them “really is all our jobs,”
she said.
In 2014, a national initia-
tive was launched to create a
strategy to promote the health
of honeybees and other polli-
nators, and EPA was tasked
with regulating pesticides that
are acutely toxic to bees. The
CapitalPress.com
13
Young farmers in the West
face additional barriers
By CAROL RYAN DUMAS
Capital Press
Carol Ryan Dumas/Capital Press
Ronda Hirnyck, University of Idaho extension pesticide coordinator,
talks about how pesticide applicators can help protect pollinators
durning Agri-Action 2016 in Twin Falls on Feb. y.
best way to do that is to put
modiied application regula-
tions on the chemical label,
she said.
EPA is testing pesticides to
determine the level of toxici-
ty, but has already identiied
and labeled neonicotinoids
for acute toxicity to bees, she
said.
Hirnyck told applicators to
take the time to read the label
before planning an applica-
tion.
“I can’t stress enough to
read the label. It’s the sole
mechanism to providing in-
formation to applicators. The
last few years, we’ve seen
some major label changes,”
she said.
Idaho agriculture uses “ne-
onics” all the time in sugar
beets, potatoes and landscape
applications, so the emphasis
is on how to use them and not
kill bees, she said.
Some of those protective
methods are just common
sense, such as not using them
at times of highest risk to bees
— when crops are blooming.
But applicators also need to
think about spray drift and the
potential effect on bees if low-
ering plants or water is con-
taminated by drift, she said.
“You’ve got to pay atten-
tion to when bees are visiting
and the surroundings. Some of
these chemicals are very toxic
in small amounts. Even pesti-
cides in organic (production)
can be acutely toxic to bees. If
you’re organic, you’re not off
the hook,” she said.
Some areas are just dicey,
and it might be tough to ind a
window to spray. Applicators
should check bloom on low-
ering weeds and the weather,
which can be a big factor in
drift, she said.
It’s also better to spray
when bees are least active —
sunup and sundown. Spraying
at sundown allows chemi-
cals on foliage to break down
through the night and lower
residual toxicity before bees
become active during the day,
she said.
Communication with bee-
keepers is also a must and
is mandated on labels. They
need to be contacted at least
48 hours before an application
to allow them to move hives.
Any alfalfa seed growers in the
area should also be contacted
so the grower can protect bees,
she said.
Farmers Ending Hunger...
Begins With You!
In addition to the tall bar-
riers facing all young farmers,
such as access to land and
capital, those in the West are
facing a growing water crisis
from extended drought and a
widening supply-demand gap
from a booming population.
In the arid West, where
irrigated land comes at a pre-
mium, access to water com-
pounds the barriers, according
to a new report, Conservation
Generation, commissioned by
the National Young Farmers
Coalition.
The coalition views any
farmer 35 or younger as a
“young” farmer.
Young farmers are already
a scarcity, with only 1,220
young principal farm opera-
tors joining the U.S. producer
ranks between 2007 and 2012,
according to USDA.
Protecting the national
food and water supply will re-
quire a deeper commitment to
young farmers, Kate Green-
berg, NYFC Western water
program manager, said.
“If we fail to adequately
invest in young farmers, we
risk losing a generation of
water stewards, and land cur-
rently farmed will likely fall
out of agricultural production
and be fallowed, developed or
consolidated,” she said.
With agriculture account-
ing for up to 80 percent of
human water consumption
in Western states, it is often
turned to as the irst source to
free up water for other uses,
but “buy and dry” can no lon-
ger be the default solution to
closing the supply-demand
gap, the authors of the report
stated.
That gap and the crisis of
attrition must be addressed
and can be done in tandem
by decreasing the barriers to
conservation and making the
West’s working lands afford-
able for young farmers, they
stated.
“Conservation is embed-
Courtesy of National Young Farmers Coalition
Members of the National Young Farmers Coalition afiliate chapter,
the Four Corners Farmers and Ranchers Coalition, gather for
a workshop at the James Ranch in Durango, Colo., to discuss
on-farm practices for soil health and water conservation. The work-
shop was hosted by NYFC and the Family Farm Alliance.
About the survey
People surveyed: 379 Western farmers, online
Additional: 50 people in eight focus groups
Demographics: Majority did not grow up on a farm or ranch, are
within their irst 10 years of farming, have small-scale organic
operations and are conservation-minded
Average age: 36
Data analysis: Kathleen Hilimire, assistant professor of Environ-
mental Studies, and Rebecca Clausen, associate professor and
chairman of the Sociology and Human Services Department, Fort
Lewis College, Durango, Colo.; Adrian Oglesby, director, Utton
Transboundary Resources Center, University of New Mexico
School of Law; and University of New Mexico law students Anne
Minard, Stephanie Russo, Zach Ogaz
Commissioned by: National Young Farmers Coalition
ded in the very way young
farmers do business. The
problem is our policies, pro-
grams and funding priorities
lag behind these values and
practices,” the authors stat-
ed.
NYFC’s survey of young
farmers found that water
availability, climate change
and drought are the top three
concerns of young farmers
in the West, followed by
access to affordable irrigat-
ed land. It also found that
94 percent of respondents
are already using some
form of conservation and
89 percent cited building
healthy soils as their primary
tool.
Healthy soil is critical to
water conservation, drought
resilience and long-term pro-
ductivity of the land. The
healthier the soil, the more
water it can store. With each
percent increase in organic
matter, soils can hold 20,000
gallons or more of addition-
al water per acre, the authors
stated.
But many barriers to con-
servation exist, respondents
said.
To start, only 25 percent of
respondents are monitoring soil
moisture, which would allow
farmers to reine irrigation.
One respondent said farm-
ers need better access to cheap
and effective tools to monitor
and evaluate soil moisture, the
authors reported.
Reap
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one acre at a time!
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Visit
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burtjgb@aol.com
503-931-9232
farmersendinghunger.com
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