{"id":29851,"date":"2021-09-17T00:01:48","date_gmt":"2021-09-17T04:01:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/beyondpesticides.org\/dailynewsblog\/?p=29851"},"modified":"2021-09-17T11:56:08","modified_gmt":"2021-09-17T15:56:08","slug":"retailers-fail-to-protect-pollinators-badly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/beyondpesticides.org\/dailynewsblog\/2021\/09\/retailers-fail-to-protect-pollinators-badly\/","title":{"rendered":"Retailers Fail to Protect Pollinators…Badly"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

(Beyond Pesticides<\/em>, September 17, 2021) Against the backdrop of what The New York Times<\/em> in 2018 called the \u201cinsect apocalypse<\/a>,\u201d and the dire plight of pollinators<\/a> in particular, Friends of the Earth (FOE) recently issued its retailer scorecard<\/a>, which benchmarks \u201c25 of the largest U.S. grocery stores on pesticides, organic offerings and pollinator health\u201d\u2014 with the vast majority of retailers failing to protect pollinators. FOE reporting shows some, but far too slow and anemic, progress by corporate actors in enacting pollinator- and bee-friendly policies across both retail sites and supply chains. Such policies, to be genuinely effective and protective of pollinators (and human health), would eliminate or at least dramatically reduce the presence of pesticides in the food supply. The path out of the chemical pesticide quagmire is organic: companies must do more to move suppliers to organic, regenerative production practices<\/a>, and EPA should be pulling these toxic compounds<\/a> from the market.<\/p>\r\n

Tracking the pollinator policies and enforcement activities of various huge companies yields a useful barometer in monitoring the travel of pesticides to the consumer. Yet the results in the FOE scorecard \u2014 e.g., only two of those 25 retailers scored even in the \u201cB\u201d range, and 21 scored \u201cD\u201d or \u201cF\u201d \u2014 do underline powerfully the folly of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency\u2019s (EPA\u2019s) allowance of these compounds, whose uses damage the very organisms (and ecosystems) on which one-third of the domestic food supply<\/a> depends.<\/p>\r\n

FOE evaluated these 25 retailers, including entities that are not grocers, per se, but do sell food, such as 7-Eleven, CVS, Dollar General, Dollar Tree, Rite Aid, and Walgreens. These categories of \u201cpollinator protection performance\u201d were considered and assigned points: presence of a pollinator health policy for groceries (maximum of 45 points); implementation of the policy in supply chains (max 90); transparency and accountability (max 21); collaboration (max 10); and complementary home and garden policies for live goods, such as plants, and pesticide products for outdoor use (max 9). The highest possible number of total points was 175.<\/p>\r\n

A few highlights of the rubric include: for the pollinator health policy category, a commitment to reducing pesticide use, avoiding \u201cregrettable\u201d substitutes, and expanding USDA (U.S. Department of Agriculture) Certified Organic offerings; and for implementation, evidence of phasing out or reducing pesticides in products sold, and bonus points for using domestic organic producers. (See details of the FOE rubric here<\/a>.)<\/p>\r\n

The overall scores generated by FOE\u2019s analysis are grim; apart from the overall scores and grades of Giant Eagle (score 102, grade B), Whole Foods Market (score 88, grade B-), Walmart (score 82, grade C+), and Costco (score 70, grade C), all the other retailers came in below the 48-point mark, yielding grades of D+ and below. Eleven received \u201cFs\u201d and three scored zero total points (7-Eleven, Meijer, and Wakefern Food). Those 11 received zeros in multiple of the evaluated categories. Many well-known companies also scored extremely poorly (below 20 points overall): Wegman\u2019s (overall score of 17), Amazon.com (15), Walgreen\u2019s (15), BJ\u2019s Wholesale Club (14), H-E-B (14), Southeastern Grocers (5), Dollar General (5), and Hy-Vee (5).<\/p>\r\n

These ratings can leave a pretty bitter taste in a consumer\u2019s mouth, particularly if one\u2019s local grocery has rated poorly. As FOE points out, it can be tricky to know which of these entities may own a local grocery store; some of those evaluated, such as Target, Costco, Aldi, Wegman\u2019s, and CVS, hold only their single, branded retail facilities. But many others have multiple subsidiary holdings; indeed, Kroger has 22 subsidiary grocery retail outlets, and Albertson\u2019s holds 12. Helpfully, FOE has provided a guide to the subsidiary holdings of these 25 companies<\/a>. It also provides perspective on the size of these entities<\/a> in what is an increasingly consolidated food system landscape.<\/p>\r\n

FOE hopes that its scorecard will help \u201cspur a race to the top\u201d \u2014 essentially, publicly pressure retailers to create pollinator-protective policies for their operations. Since 2018, the FOE reports notes, 10 retailers have created such policies, but only Giant Eagle and Walmart have committed to time frames. Giant Eagle (which operates primarily in Pennsylvania, with some locations in Maryland) will eliminate nitroguanidine neonicotinoid pesticides from its produce supply chain by 2025. (Nitroguanidines include imidacloprid<\/a>, clothianidin<\/a>, thiamethoxam<\/a>, dinotefuran<\/a>, and acetamiprid<\/a> \u2014 all of which are highly toxic to bees.)<\/p>\r\n

Both retailers will require that their produce suppliers adopt IPM (Integrated Pest Management) protocols that will be verified by independent certifiers, by 2025. Beyond Pesticides is not a fan of IPM in agriculture because there is no standardized and enforceable definition or particular federal authorization that oversees the IPM moniker and practices, and as the multitude of definitions show, nearly any chemical might be used in an IPM protocol. (See the USDA<\/a> and EPA<\/a> web pages on IPM.) In the context of controls in buildings, Beyond Pesticides supports only well-defined IPM, which outlines allowed practices and substances.<\/p>\r\n

Other companies \u2014 Albertsons, Aldi, Costco, Dollar Tree, Kroger, Meijer, Rite Aid, and Target \u2014 have established policies \u201cencouraging\u201d suppliers to reduce their use of \u201cpesticides of concern\u201d (such as these<\/a>, according to FOE, but it is unclear how the companies define the term), and to move to less-toxic production practices. However, these policies include neither metrics nor implementation targets.<\/p>\r\n

In its review, FOE considered whether the companies were doing anything to increase their organic offerings, and whether they are active in encouraging and\/or incentivizing conventional producers to transition to less-toxic approaches, such as organic, regenerative farming (or IPM). Last, FOE assessed<\/a> whether the companies are educating consumers about pesticide-and-pollinator issues, and advocating for public policies \u201cthat shift government support from pesticide-intensive agriculture to organic and ecological farming systems.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

FOE says<\/a>, \u201cThe majority of the company policies state a commitment to expand organic offerings, which are grown without the use of over 900 pesticides otherwise allowed in agriculture.\u201d FOE calls these \u201cimportant first steps,\u201d but adds that<\/a> \u201cthe extinction crisis demands that all food retailers make time-bound commitments to phase out toxic pesticides and support a transition to organic and regenerative agriculture, which is better for pollinators, people and the planet.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

The key findings<\/a> of the FOE report are:
\r\n\u2022 There is growing momentum around addressing pesticide use in the U.S. food retail sector, but stronger leadership is needed to protect pollinators.<\/p>\r\n