Don't know who needs to hear this:
Happy Halloween!
And also, you may be feeling like shit if you live in the US because while some harmful pesticides were banned, chemical companies found a loophole. While some pesticides can't be sprayed anymore, there was never anything said about them being used to directly coat seeds. There is a pesticide 10x more harmful than some of it's most harmful predecessors called Neonicotinoids (neonics for short) that are used to coat mostly corn, wheat, and soy seeds. While it does its job, it does it a little too good as it's one of the primary reasons that 1 in 5 native Colorado bumble bee species in the US being on the verge of extinction, like up to a "72% decline in the Western Bumblebee populations in the Southern Rockies".
The neonics pesticide is a neurotoxic pesticide. Bees can become addicted to pollen laced with pesticides, which makes them more likely to return to that plant. They bring it back to the hive, where the babies are developing. The pesticide laced product of visiting those plants can cause abnormal brain development in the ba-bees (baby bees), once they mature they are more often than not - found to be handicapped, either rendered unable or very ineffectively learn and/or able to perform their tasks.
If that's not bad enough, while it doesn't necessarily mean instant death for bees when it's the seeds that are coated, the effects are still horrific (when sprayed, a cloud of neonics can wipe out a shit ton of bees. I'm talking 10,000+ in a single go if they're unfortunate enough to be there. The number may even be higher and I am not joking at all about that). Exposure to the pollen/nectar of the neonic- coated seeds can cause dizziness and disorientation, making for lost bees. It can cause brain damage and attack their nervous systems - overwhelming them and causing paralysis, and attack their immune systems and weaken them - this can collapse their hives btw. That's JUST bees, fyi, Butterflies have seen an 80% decrease in their populations in the last 20 years but that's another topic to cover another time, they are affected here too though.
Neonics-coated seeds and the use of neonics period have also been linked to fawn mortalities in deer, and traces of this pesticide have been found in the spleens of deer. The runoff of soil from these plants goes downstream due to the infected soil and affects fish populations. Speaking of the soil, the bees that burrow in the ground near these plants also get hit with this as it seeps into the soil and spreads to their little bee burrows.
So, the chemicals, instead of being sprayed onto the plants, are actually now directly inside the plants and produce and no amount of washing it does anything.
What is the payoff for this you ask? What makes this so worth it that it's actively damaging ecosystems and populations and affecting our health?
Well, I'm glad you asked! On a good year, in a really good area, there was a 12% increase of unaffected produce from bugs! 12% of produce that has, in fact, been repeatedly noted as more likely to end up in the landfills as waste even before they started doing this to seeds.
Farmers that use these seeds probably don't even know it's been done to the seeds. And if they do know, unfortunately it's one guy who was slimy enough to decide to own the patent for corn seeds so farmers in the US really don't have much in the way of options there. So yeah. If you're in the US, this is in your best interest. Everything else is on fire, we shouldn't have to worry anymore about our 'healthy' food being affected too when we're already paying an arm and leg for it.
Here's some things you can sign:
Call on Amazon to stop selling bee-killing pesticides
Tell your governor: Restrict neonic-coated seeds that kill bees
Tell Governor Polis: Save the bees, limit the use of neonic-coated seeds.
