In a continuation to overturn anything Obama, has decided that farmers that rely on insect pollination don't matter.
The US Department of Agriculture has suspended data collection for its annual Honey Bee Colonies report, citing cost cuts -- a move that robs researchers and the honeybee industry of a critical tool for understandinghoneybee population declines. Last year, the Trump administration reversed an Obama-era rule barring the use of neonicotinoids, a chemical family that is one of the major culprits in colony collapse disorder, in wildlife refuges. And the Environmental Protection Agency has granted "emergency" permissions to 18 states to spray an insecticide that's considered "highly toxic" to bees. Two other surveys have been suspended or scaled back in the last year. The Cost of Pollination survey, which tracked how farmers pay for honeybees to pollinate their crops, was suspended in 2018, and the Honey survey -- which gathers information on honey production -- has been scaled back to cut data collection on beekeeping operations that have less than five colonies.
The US Department of Agriculture has suspended data collection for its annual Honey Bee Colonies report, citing cost cuts -- a move that robs researchers and the honeybee industry of a critical tool for understandinghoneybee population declines. Last year, the Trump administration reversed an Obama-era rule barring the use of neonicotinoids, a chemical family that is one of the major culprits in colony collapse disorder, in wildlife refuges. And the Environmental Protection Agency has granted "emergency" permissions to 18 states to spray an insecticide that's considered "highly toxic" to bees. Two other surveys have been suspended or scaled back in the last year. The Cost of Pollination survey, which tracked how farmers pay for honeybees to pollinate their crops, was suspended in 2018, and the Honey survey -- which gathers information on honey production -- has been scaled back to cut data collection on beekeeping operations that have less than five colonies.
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