This page is a part of the corpus (Annexe 1) used to write Stéphane Foucart and neonicotinoids.
Here, I relate what the journalist said in his article "Pesticides: les ravages de l’agriculture américaine". All quotes, originally in French, were translated by me.
A study published in early August (2019) in PLOS ONE looked at the "toxic load" of American agriculture for insects between 1992 and 2014. It had, over this period been multiplied by 48, almost exclusively because of NNIs, which would represent 92% of the toxic load over this period.
This study deconstructs "the idea that the general decline of insects is mainly due to climate change, natural pathogens, invasive species, etc."
The toxic load indicator would have been built "on the tonnages of each family of insecticides used, on its acute toxicity to insects (with the honey bee as a reference) but also on its average persistence in the environment".
According to Pierre Mineau, reports from the EPA anticipated "dramatic effects on the ecology of the terrestrial or aquatic systems in which these products would be used". He concludes :
"Everything that happened was predictable, if not expected."