The Center for Food Safety filed a lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency for the agency’s failure to regulate seed treatments, including neonicotinoids. CFS claims they are harming bees and other pollinators and having devastating environmental effects. CFS Scientific Director Bill Freese says they filed a petition in 2017 to close a loophole that allows pesticide treated seed to evade the registration and labeling requirement of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act.

Freese says crops grown from coated seeds cover over 150 million acres of U.S. farmland each year. He says research proves these insecticides hurt beneficial insects, valuable pollinators and birds.

He says there are various studies that also show these seeds coatings pose real harm to workers and farmers, while the treatments are ineffective.

Plus, Freese says more than 80-percent of the pesticide coating can leave the seed and contaminate the air, soil, and surrounding waterways.