PARTNER POST: Regulate Neonicotinoid Pesticides
- Pollinator Friendly Alliance
- 7 minutes ago
- 2 min read
Pollinator Friendly Alliance, June 2026
This is an important opportunity to make comments to the State of Minnesota regarding neonicotinoid pesticides. Pesticide use is the driving force behind pollinator decline. Please add your name to our group comment asking the Minnesota Department of Agriculture to protect our state from neonicotinoid pesticide contamination. The open comment period is only from June to mid-July.
Existing regulations have proven inadequate to protect pollinators, water quality, birds, fish, aquatic ecosystems, and wildlife. For years, the Minnesota Department of Agriculture (MDA) has relied on voluntary guidance and inadequate federal regulation to regulate the use of pesticide-treated seeds, even while documenting their widespread harms to Minnesota’s environment and wildlife. This inadequate regulation violates Minnesotans’ right to the protection, preservation, and enhancement of air, water, land, and other natural resources. The MDA has jurisdiction to properly regulate and must take action as soon as possible.
Neonicotinoid pesticides (neonics) are toxic to bees and other insects in extremely small amounts. Even at sublethal levels, they cause harm for survival and reproduction. Minnesota’s surface water is widely contaminated with neonics at levels expected to cause harm to aquatic invertebrates that are a crucial food source for fish and other species. Studies show a connection between neonic exposure and significant health harms in white-tailed deer, including decreased fawn survival. Neonics appear in the bodies of half the U.S. population. Research links neonic exposure to birth defects of the heart and brain and cognitive impairment in prenatally exposed children, as well as lower testosterone, sperm count, and sperm quality in adults.
Neonic-treated seeds are the main cause of widespread neonic contamination in Minnesota. Nearly 100% of conventional corn and about half or more of soybeans grown in Minnesota are grown from a neonic-treated seed, meaning these seeds are spread on at least 12 million acres of farmland each year. Leading research shows that the vast majority of neonics applied to seeds are not absorbed by the seed, but instead enter the environment. As a result, MDA has observed that reported honey bee kills and neonic levels in surface water spike during the spring corn and soybean planting season. Contamination driven by neonic-treated seed use will continue unless MDA takes meaningful action.
Moreover, peer-reviewed research shows that neonic seed treatments in corn and soybean rarely provide economic benefits to the farmers who use them. This means that the MDA can limit its use without hurting farmers. We urge the MDA to require farmers to prove the need to use neonic-treated seed, to work with seed suppliers to make untreated seed readily available for farmers, work to reduce the use of neonic-treated seed, and discontinue the use of neonic pesticides for consumer residential use.
This contamination is harming pollinators, wildlife, and human health. Overwhelming evidence shows that Minnesota’s existing regulations are failing to protect us and the environment from neonicotinoid pesticide contamination. For these reasons and more, we urge the State of Minnesota and the Department of Agriculture to comply with its obligations under the law and act to limit unnecessary uses of neonic-treated seeds.