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When we try to take the pulse of pesticide use in Quebec, we often have to be patient. Pesticide sales reports are published two years late. Agricultural producers — tired of being called polluters and sometimes worried about their own health — do not boast of using them. There remains the samples taken from rivers in agricultural areas, for which there is also a certain delay before their publication.
Even recent regulatory changes have taken the omnibus route, mammoth bills that few experts or journalists have the time to analyze in detail.
But now a few lines in a table from a regulatory impact analysis shed a little more light: “The number of agricultural producers using seeds coated with insecticides is estimated at 16,840.”
As an indication, there are approximately 29,000 agricultural businesses in the province, according to Statistics Canada. It is therefore up to 57% of all producers who use coated seeds, if we are to believe the estimate based on which the Ministry of the Environment, the Fight against Climate Change, Wildlife and Parks (MELCCFP).
A significant proportion of farmers thus continue to use pesticides systematically, rather than only at times when a pest or a particular insect occurs. It’s a bit like taking antibiotics for prevention, as an expert already told us.
The Ordre des agronomes du Québec (OAQ) also wrote it in black and white in 2020 in a guide to help its members make decisions: “The use of [traitements de semences insecticides] should be recommended as a last resort. » It should not “be systematic”, it is added in this document.
There is still some good news: there are practically no more retail sales of seeds coated with neonicotinoids. These pesticides, called “bee killers”, have been denounced, publicized and they have finally been sold on agronomic prescription in Quebec since 2019. From 100% of the areas sown with corn coated with neonicotinoids in 2015, we went to less than 0.5%, the MELCCFP told us. For soybeans, “the entire surface area” would now be sown without “neonics”, writes a public relations specialist at Duty.
The flip side of this advancement: neonics have actually been replaced by the diamide family, which includes chlorantraniliprole and cyantraniliprole. The quantity sold of these products between 2017 and 2021 tripled and doubled respectively.
Water samples taken by the MEFCCFP in corn and soybean growing areas also show that chlorantraniliprole, or “chloran” by its nickname, is detected in all control watercourses. Between 2018 and 2020, its concentration even exceeded the health criterion for aquatic life in the Saint-Régis River, “in just a few years of use,” notes Geneviève Labrie, phytoprotection researcher for the Research Center. agri-food industry of Mirabel (CRAM).
Still useless
Mme Labrie did not precisely study the effect of diamides; rather, she is an expert in the field of insect pest populations in fields. Whether it is neonics or diamides, his observation remains the same: “There are not enough insects to justify the use of insecticide seed treatments, and there is no difference in yield between [une parcelle] processed and [une parcelle] not treated. »
With a team continuing the work at the Grain Research Center (CÉROM), she has carried out screening for several types of insect pests on 1,000 sites in Quebec over the past 13 years. Result: only 5 to 8% of these fields have enough insects to justify the use of pesticides. The latter are therefore useless in more than 90% of fields, and they have an economic and ecological cost.
Rebelote, then, for coated seeds? Insecticides from the diamide family are less harmful to bees than neonics, but they are still dangerous substances, recalls M.me Labrie. “Cyantraniliprole is perhaps three times less toxic, it still kills with nanograms of substance. »
In addition, this situation has the disadvantage of being more “silent”, says the researcher. There have certainly not yet been sentinel insects to which the public can become attached, as with the bee. But research shows in particular that chlorantraniliprole is “extremely toxic” to aquatic invertebrates.
We may not see insects in waterways, but they are still at the base of the food chain. “It is food for fish, frogs and birds. The entire ecosystem can be affected by their disappearance, recalls Mme Labrie.
The researcher wishes to point out that “it is often not a decision of the producers”. There is often a problem with the availability of uncoated corn seeds, for example, since they come from Ontario or the United States, where insect species are in fact more damaging to crops.
Seeds coated with these substances will also be sold on agronomic prescription from January 2025. “It’s sad to be forced to go through with a law, but I think it’s necessary,” says the researcher. The prescription system works, she adds: “We are pioneers in North America and I am contacted regularly by states who want to do the same thing. »
Les Producteurs de grains du Québec (PGQ) were not able to respond to our interview request. Upon reading the regulatory omnibus bill, PGQ president Christian Overbeek expressed concern in September that it would only lead to “an increase in costs and a reduction in productivity.” Several problems are emerging, according to him: there is a lack of agronomists and technologists to “provide quality and professional services”, and there are impacts on the income of producers and therefore on their competitiveness on an international scale.