Victory for Pollinators! Retail stores to stop selling neonic pesticides in Massachusetts

By Marty Dagoberto, NOFA/Mass Policy Director

On  March 1st 2021 the Mass. Pesticide Board Subcommittee passed a motion to protect pollinators by restricting the use of neonicotinoid pesticides (“neonics”). The new regulations, which go into effect in 2022, will remove pesticide products containing neonics from retail stores and require that only licenced pesticide applicators use such products for lawn care or on turf, trees, shrubs and gardens. (Read the specifics about the motion, here.)

This marks an incremental victory which took us 6 years to land, and it only happened because of immense, ongoing grassroots action and legislative allies who are willing to hold state regulators accountable. We still have a monumental endeavor ahead if we are to reduce toxins and rein in the toxic influence of the chemical lobby!

Please help us keep this momentum moving. Thank your legislators and ask them to cosponsor the 2021-22 NOFA/Mass Pesticide Reform Bills. 

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Please help us thank your state legislators “for protecting pollinators and requiring the Pesticide Board Subcommittee to follow the science on neonics.” We will need their help to reform how pesticides are regulated in our state moving forward! Here is a spreadsheet listing all of the legislators who supported Rep. Dykema’s Pollinator Protection Act and those who signed her joint testimony to the Subcommittee last December. If either of your legislators is on this list (“Who are my legislators?“), please give them a personal phone call or email. If they get personal recognition from a few constituents, it will go a LONG way toward enlisting their help moving forward.

Click here to send a quick message to your legislators asking them to cosponsor the 2021-22 NOFA/Mass Pesticide Reform Bills, and be sure to thank them for supporting the consumer ban on neonics!

Please also help us celebrate by supporting our efforts to protect pollinators and launch the new Massachusetts Pollinator Network! (See below)

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A bit of the history behind this move:

As our members and followers well know, for years we’ve been pushing the legislature to pass An Act to protect Massachusetts Pollinators, sponsored by pollinator champion Representative Carolyn Dykema. Though the bill garnered widespread bipartisan support, the bill never made it to the floor for a vote. In 2019, Rep. Dykema successfully introduced a budget appropriation for $100,000, which required the Department of Agricultural Resources to perform a literature review on the impacts of neonicotinoids on pollinators. (This report and decision based upon it were due by the end of 2019.) The literature review, released at the beginning of 2020, outlined the overwhelming evidence that neonics are harming pollinators. The review found that nearly all of the impact-based studies reviewed (42 of 43) cited neonics as a contributor to pollinator declines, and pointed out that the only study with mixed results was industry-funded.  

With efforts stalled in the legislature for years, we focused efforts on the Massachusetts Pesticide Board Subcommittee. This is the regulatory body tasked with deciding which pesticides can be used in Massachusetts, and by which users. The subcommittee currently consists of representatives of various state departments: Bureau of Environmental Health Food Protection Program, Department of Agricultural Resources, Department of Conservation and Recreation, Department of Public Health and one member of the public appointed by the governor (a pesticide applicator).

As we previously reported, a hearing of the Subcommittee last December (over Zoom) had over 100 supporters of restricting neonics in attendance. Frustration with a lack of meaningful action on pesticides was echoed by many of the two dozen advocates who testified. Our legislative pollinator champion, Rep. Carolyn Dykema, delivered a fierce statement signed by 80 of her legislative colleagues, which included this passage:

“Despite concerns about neonicotinoids being brought to the Department’s attention repeatedly by the Attorney General’s office, legislators and others since 2014, the [Pesticide Board] Subcommittee failed to initiate an independent review or take any consequential action until 2019, when legislatively required to do so. This inability or unwillingness to respond to concerns that clearly fall within its purview raises concerns about whether the Subcommittee is able to fulfill its charge under the law to regulate pesticides.” – Rep. Carolyn Dykema and 80 other legislators in a joint statement

At the next meeting of the Subcommittee, on February 16, 2021 the following motion was introduced by Commissioner John Lebeaux:

That the Pesticide Board Subcommittee has determined that current uses of neonicotinoid pesticides used in outdoor non-structural uses or outdoor non-agricultural uses, may pose unreasonable adverse effects to the environment as well as pollinators, when taking into account the economic, social and environmental costs and benefits of their use in the Commonwealth. Therefore, the Subcommittee modifies the registration classification of pesticide products containing neonicotinoids that have outdoor non-structural uses or outdoor non-agricultural uses on the label from general use to state restricted use. These include but are not limited to, uses on lawn and turf, trees and shrubs, ornamentals, and vegetable and flower gardens. The reclassification shall begin on July 1, 2022.

This motion was then adopted without amendment at their next meeting on March 1, 2021.

(Read the specifics about the motion, here.)

While the motion includes the key element of “An Act to protect Massachusetts pollinators,”  – the consumer ban on neonic pesticides, it leaves out several other very important provisions. Most notably, it lacks a requirement to provide consumers information on the dangers of neonicotinoids that could lead them to opting out of any neonic application to their property. The Pollinator Protection Act had also called on regulators to update pesticide applicator training curriculum about the risks neonics pose to pollinator populations.

As our national allies at Beyond Pesticides point out: Massachusetts now joins Maryland, Connecticut, and Vermont in restricting consumer uses of these hazardous insecticides. But it is evident that these victories must only be the first step toward broader protections for pollinator populations.

At the hearing last December, representatives of 55 agricultural, environmental, climate and pollinator advocacy groups, farms and businesses submitted this joint testimony outlining restrictions we see as necessary in light of the findings of the literature review. These recommendations include a ban on the use of neonic-coated corn and soybean seeds, labeling of nursery plants treated with neonics and a ban on aesthetic-only uses. The coalition will continue to push for these measures and do so, we will need the continued support of the grassroots. (For now, please contact your legislators to thank them for supporting this first step – details above.)

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Gratitude

This small but very significant victory was made possible by the sustained organizing of a small coalition of advocacy groups supported by a much broader coalition of allies and the immense grassroots movement to protect pollinators.

Special thanks go to our core coalition partners over these past 5+years:

Friends of the Earth
Massachusetts Beekeepers Association (MassBee)
MASSPIRG
Native Plant Trust (Formerly New England Wildflower Society)
NOFA/Mass
Plymouth County Beekeepers Association
Regeneration Massachusetts
They Keep Bees at Yard Birds Farm
Western Mass Pollinator Networks

THANK YOU to our immense coalition of advocacy organizations, farms and businesses who have endorsed our efforts and worked with us to raise the visibility of the need to reduce pesticides use and protect pollinators!

And finally, THANK YOU (YOU!) for being among the tens of thousands of Massachusetts residents who continue to make your voice heard for the pollinators, for providing the PEOPLE POWER needed to counter the influence of the chemical corporations. This is just the beginning – we have a long way to go to bring about the healthy, living landscapes which feed and protect our families and ecosystems. 

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MEDIA HITS

Cape Cod Times, March, 2, 2021 – Pollinator, environmental advocates hail state’s partial ban on pesticides

Beyond Pesticides, March 3, 2021 – Massachusetts Regulators Restrict Consumer Use of Bee-Toxic Neonicotinoid Pesticides

Mass Farm Bureau Federation, February/March 2021 Newsletter, page 3 – Neonicotinoid Vote By MA Pesticide Board Subcommittee

WBUR, March 5, 2021 – Mass. Pesticide Limitation Seen As Victory In Bee Protection Movement

Public News Service, March 5, 2021 – New MA Pesticide Rules Made to Protect Pollinators (with audio)

95.9 WATD fm, March 11, 2021 (audio)

WGBH, March 25, 2021 – Save The Bees: Massachusetts Issues New Rules To Restrict Some Pesticides

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Photo: Taxomerus Syrphid flies AKA “flower flies,” mating –  a pollinator native to Massachusetts, easily mistaken for bees and wasps due to their black and yellow stripes. Photo by Dan Jaffe Wilder, Ecological Horticulturalist at Norcross Wildlife Sanctuary in Wales, MA. Watch Dan’s talk, titled “Kill Your Lawn!” on March 11st at 7PM, first in the Mass. Pollinator Network fundraiser speaker series. Info and registration: http://masspollinatornetwork.org/

Announcing: The Massachusetts Pollinator Network!

Pollinator protection communities from the seacoast to the Berkshires are collaborating with NOFA/Mass to build a state-wide hub for native pollinator protection. Together, we will protect and expand pollinator habitats and reduce the use of biocides in landscapes across the Commonwealth!

More info at www.masspollinatornetwork.org