Defra has announced support for further restrictions on neonicotinoid pesticides, linked to impacts bees and butterflies.

Read Defra’s blog and there is more coverage in the Guardian.

According to Defra, Matt Shardlow, CEO of Buglife, warmly welcomes the news in the Express saying Michael Gove’s support for a more comprehensive ban on neonicotinoids is just the sort of decisive and science based action that the public needs to see. Craig Bennett, Friends of the Earth chief executive, welcomed the news in The Guardian and also highlighted that farmers across the UK are already finding innovative ways to successfully grow crops without neonicotinoids.

Professor Dave Goulson, from the University of Sussex took a similar line: “It is great to see the Government responding to the weight of evidence linking neonicotinoids to declines of wild insects such as bees and butterflies. We need to encourage farmers to move away from reliance on pesticides as the solution to the many problems that industrial monoculture cropping create.”