Farmers in the prairie provinces “are at severe risk of crop failure” this coming season, “potentially exacerbating the food affordability crisis,” says Alberta’s agriculture minister in reaction to new federal restrictions on a widely used pesticide.
A bad infestation could wipe out up to 80 percent of crop yields since there aren’t yet enough quantities of alternative pesticides available, Alberta Canola Chair Roger Chevraux told The Epoch Times.
Effective April 1, lambda-cyhalothrin can no longer be applied to crops used as animal feed. It can still be used, however, on most crops for direct human consumption. The federal Pest Management Regulatory Agency says it made the decision to limit the amount of residue accumulating in the Canadian diet.
Banning the pesticide on animal feed but not on human food is “impractical,” Chevraux said.
“The decision implies that the feed supply chain is separate from the food supply chain,” he said via email. “It would imply that the fields for growing feed are separate from fields for food, there is segregated storage and hauling and it would mean that grain handlers and shippers have segregated storage and delivery mechanisms.”
That isn’t the case, and “This would require a major industry shift, which would cost millions of dollars and many years to implement,” Chevraux said.
No such ban is in place in the United States. U.S. animal feed treated with the pesticide will likely enter Canada at greater rates to replace the Canadian feed, farmers told The Epoch Times.
“It makes it an uncompetitive situation for Canadian farmers,” Saskatchewan farmer and SaskCanola Board Chair Keith Fournier said in an interview.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) came to different conclusions than PRMA regarding human health risk, says Saskatchewan’s Ministry of Agriculture. “We are calling on Health Canada to provide an extension to the lambda-cyhalothrin … decision to reevaluate human health impacts of feed use,” the ministry said in an emailed statement.
Alberta’s ministry is also asking for an extension. They say this change ahead of the 2023 growing season is unwarranted. “At a time when our farmers are finally finding their footing after a rough couple of years, this decision could set many of them back,” Minister Horner said.
The Science on Health Risks
PRMA and Health Canada last reevaluated the pesticide in April 2021 to see if it meets current health and environmental standards.PRMA’s 115-page full evaluation, a copy of which The Epoch Times obtained, outlines the scientific back-and-forth on health risks. It includes comments submitted by scientists questioning the studies used and Health Canada’s responses.
In some cases, Health Canada walked back its decisions on adverse health effects. For example, it had originally said studies on female rats showed “equivocal evidence” that high doses of lambda-cyhalothrin could produce mammary gland tumours. After reviewing a scientist’s criticism of the study, however, Health Canada agreed that there is “no evidence” of increased mammary gland tumours due to exposure.
Health Canada says there is some evidence of risk to reproductive organs and the nervous system. For example, an increase in uterine tumors was found in studies on mice. Testicular weight was affected in studies on rodents and dogs. Some studies also showed “adverse effects on mobility and gait” in adult rats.
The U.S. EPA has reviewed and approved a significant dataset that PMRA “received in 2019 but still hasn’t gotten to,” Gord Kurbis, vice president of trade policy and crop protection at Canada Grains Council, told The Epoch Times via email.
A Farmer’s Challenges
“As a farmer, we want organizations like the Pest Management Regulatory Agency, the PMRA, so that we know that the food we’re raising is safe and that the consumers that are eating that food know that it’s safe,“ SaskCanola’s Fournier said. ”[PMRA] needs to make sure that they have the resources there to be able to look at all the data to be able to do their review properly.”He said the problem remains that many farmers may watch their crops fail if more time isn’t given to let the pesticide market adjust. Manufacturers of lambda-cyhalothrin pesticides have pulled their products from Western Canada.
“The main concern would be just that we’ve taken a supply of insecticide off of the market. And so then if there is an infestation of an insect in our crops, is there going to be availability of the other products?” he asked.
“It’s tough as a farmer that when you see your crop disappearing daily with insects that are attacking it, that we might not have the tools that we need to be able to protect that,” he said.
Fournier has been working his farm in Lone Rock, Saskatchewan, for 40 years and plans to pass it along to the next generation. In addition to the stressful uncertainties of nature and keeping up with changing technology, he said adapting to government policy is a major concern for farmers.
The Canadian government has announced goals to reduce fertilizer emissions by 30 percent by 2030. Fournier has spent hundreds of thousands on preemptive actions, buying new equipment that conserves fertilizer by spreading less on areas of his land that doesn’t need it.
With the size of his farm, he only requires one tractor and one seeder, but it would cost more for bigger operations, he said.
“They haven’t put a date and regulation to those goals yet, but it’s worrisome that if they do that, can we as farmers be able to adapt our farms fast enough to be able to meet those regulations without affecting the prosperity of our farm, without affecting the viability of our farm?”
