France urges move to ban insecticide because of potential toxicity to bees

France’s Agriculture Ministry has asked the country’s food-security and environment agency to study revoking approval of Syngenta’s Cruiser insecticide following research on the pesticide’s toxicity to honeybees.

The ministry said it would start a procedure to withdraw approval for Cruiser, the active ingredient of which is the chemical thiamethoxam, in case new science raised questions about the insecticide, said a statement on the French government’s website.

Honeybees fed a dose of thiamethoxam were about twice as likely as untreated bees to die away from the hive, suggesting that the chemical interfered with the insects’ ability to find their way back home, says a study led by Mickael Henry of France’s National Institute for Agricultural Research, which was published in the journal Science.

The researchers said they fed bees a non-lethal dose of the insecticide similar to that found in the field.

“If the new scientific data are confirmed, the authorisation to market Cruiser would be withdrawn,” the ministry wrote.

Cruiser has been used on millions of hectares of corn and rapeseed in Europe in the past four years without reported incidents of bee mortality, according to Mark Titterington, a spokesman for Syngenta.

“If used correctly, no bee mortality is reported,” asid Titterington. “We have a 10-year registration and unless that changes we have no concern.”

France is the EU’s largest agricultural producer, and the 27-nation bloc’s largest grower of wheat, rapeseed, corn, and sugar beets.

The insecticide can be used to coat the seeds of crops ranging from barley to courgette, according to the Syngenta website.