Research has proved insecticides are a key culprit behind the decline of bees. People power, with this new evidence, can take on the agribusiness giants

• Hannah Lownsbrough is executive director of SumOfUs

It’s not often that a story starting with two global pesticides giants funding a huge research study ends with the same study reporting findings that could wipe out the profit margins of the corporations in question. But that is exactly the move that Syngenta and Bayer might just have pulled off, having covered the $3m cost of research that went a long way to proving their opponents’ claims that neonicotinoid-containing pesticides are a key culprit behind the decline of bees worldwide.

The study confirmed the claims that campaigners have been making for years: that the chemicals used in some pesticides hurt bee populations in the places where they are used. Previous research that confirmed the claims has been received with scepticism, because it tried to reproduce the effects of the pesticides in the lab.

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Source: Guardian Climate Change