Do farmers really need bee-harming insecticides? |

Do farmers really need bee-harming insecticides? | Environment | theguardian.com

and from the comments:

A major problem is that there is almost no funding
for research into biological or cultural controls (e.g. crop rotations),
since these do not offer a return on investment (you cannot patent a
crop rotation system). Instead industry puts huge amounts of money
into developing and promoting technological solutions such as new
pesticides, GM crop varieties etc. which they can then sell for decades
to come."

This comment by Professor Dave Goulson from Sussex University contains a massively important point. This is the whole problem with the current food system. It isn't that there isn't any alternatives or different insights. The whole problem is that the current system is only interested in solutions or options which can be monetised i.e. solutions which someone can greatly profit from. There is no interest in any solution that cannot be monetised and patented, no matter how good it might be for everyone else and the environment. THIS IS THE WHOLE PROBLEM. We are doing things in these stupid ways, not
because there is no other option, but because it is the option that allows a tiny group of very wealthy people to carry on profiting from this idiocy.

This why wild pollinators have been largely ignored as well, even though they account for twice the pollination of crops that Honeybees do. Honeybees are commercialised and have a commercial
value. No one can profit from wild pollinators so the powerful people that run our systems are not interested in them, although us ordinary people need them to survive.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/feb/28/wild-bees-pollinators-crop-yield

here is the result of the Italian ban a few years ago:

http://www.youris.com/Environment/Bees/Marco_Lodesani_Lessons_From_The_Italian_Ban_On_Pesticides.kl

No effect on yield. Good recovery in bee populations not exposed to seed sowing (dust is a major contaminant) or spraying.