Blog By: Dylan Diedrich
Pollinators, such as bees and butterflies, are an essential part of agriculture in the United States, with fifteen to thirty percent of crops eaten in the U.S. being pollinated by bees alone.[i] Bees are responsible for an industry worth billions of dollars.[ii] Kentucky has many programs in place to inform individuals on how to protect pollinators and ensure optimal outcomes for pollinator health.[iii] However, these programs primarily work on an educational level and lack significant enforcement mechanisms to ensure that pollinators are protected from hazardous pesticides.[iv]
When thinking about pollinators, bees are one of the first insects to come to mind—and are potentially the most important for the United States. Bees have very little resistance to pesticides, and pesticide poisoning is easily identifiable due to the volume of dead bees that appear in an infected hive.[v] The Kentucky Pollinator Protection Plan is rife with information on how to properly maintain honeybee hives and ensure they are cared for.[vi] However, this plan primarily places the burden on the beekeepers of the state to protect their hives.[vii] The plan focuses on best management practices that were developed to improve the health of different pollinator species, being implemented through voluntary education programs.[viii] The practices laid out in the plan, which include mostly educational resources, while admirable, do not carry much weight when they are entirely voluntary, allowing farmers and other pesticide users to avoid complying with best practices.
Another major pollinator affected by Kentucky regulations are butterflies. Butterflies are affected by pesticides in similar ways to bees, in that they can lose plants necessary for their survival, as well as contract many diseases associated with pesticide use.[ix] Kentucky is part of the Mid-America Monarch Conservation Plan, which allows for collaboration between Kentucky and other states in an attempt to preserve habitats for monarch butterflies.[x] In 2018, Kentucky published the Kentucky Monarch Conservation Plan, but the section dedicated to pesticide use simply focuses on public awareness of the harms caused by pesticide use to monarch butterflies.[xi] Again, while education is an important aspect of protecting pollinators from harmful pesticides, it is entirely voluntary, with no penalties or sanctions for those whose use of pesticides cause harm to pollinators.
At the federal level, the United States Fish and Wildlife department has partnered with universities to develop a larger plan to protect butterflies, that would encourage states and businesses to voluntarily join.[xii] This plan, called the Monarch Candidate Conservation Agreement with Assurances (CCAA), allows landowners to “commit to certain conservation actions, including pest and vegetation management to protect the monarch and its habitat.”[xiii] The agreement also requires companies to reduce or remove threats related to the butterflies’ survival.[xiv] In return, “the [U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service] guarantee the landowners will not be required to implement additional conservation measures even if the species is listed.”[xv] This plan allows companies and other landowners to avoid any federal regulations that may better serve the pollinators and their health.
To better protect pollinators, Kentucky should improve upon both of their currently utilized protection plans. By creating an enforceable penalty or sanction for intentional violations of pesticide use that directly result in harm to any pollinator in the state, those who use pesticides will be deterred from using them in a way that could harm any pollinators. Education is an important tool for the protection of pollinators, but it is not enough. Relying solely on systems that are entirely voluntary means that any individual or organization that uses pesticides in a harmful way will receive no punishment and thus will not be discouraged from using pesticides in a similar manner in the future. If Kentucky were to implement a more serious sanction for pesticide misuse, pollinators would greatly benefit, and in turn the millions of Americans who rely on crops they pollinate would benefit as well.
[i] Ky. Dept. of Agriculture, Kentucky Pollinator Protection Plan, 5, Ky. Dept. of Agriculture (2019) https://www.kyagr.com/statevet/documents/OSV_Bee_KY-Pollinator-Pro-Plan.pdf [https://perma.cc/38AJ-U537].
[ii] Thomas C. Webster, Kentucky Beekeeping: A Guide for Beginners, 1, Ky. Dept. of Agriculture (2013) https://www.kyagr.com/statevet/documents/OSV_Bee_Beginning-Beekeeping.pdf [https://perma.cc/A4RZ-RFVH].
[iii] Id. at 5.
[iv] Id. at 4.
[v] Webster, supra note ii at 57.
[vi] Ky. Dept. of Agriculture, supra note i at 5.
[vii] Id. at 14-15.
[viii] Id.
[ix] Kristian Hernandez, Monarch Protections Across States Aim to Prevent Federal Rules, Stateline (Mar. 28, 2022, 12:00 AM) https://stateline.org/2022/03/28/monarch-protections-across-states-aim-to-prevent-federal-rules/. [https://perma.cc/3GX3-AN9B].
[x] Michaela Rogers, Conserving the Monarch Butterfly in Kentucky, Kentucky Native Plant Society (Jan. 9, 2021). https://www.knps.org/conserving-the-monarch-butterfly-in-kentucky/ [https://perma.cc/9WQ9-TUEY].
[xi] Id.
[xii] Hernandez, supra note ix.
[xiii] Id.
[xiv] Id.
[xv] Id.