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Brussels | Reuters — European Union governments on Tuesday widened the EU ban on neonicotinoid pesticides after deciding not to renew their approval for Bayer’s thiacloprid.

Farmers will not be allowed to use the neonic insecticide, sold under the brands Calypso and Biscaya, after April 30, 2020, when its current approval expires.

A majority of EU countries approved the proposal of the European Commission, the bloc’s executive arm, not to extend approval.

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The Commission based its assessment on findings of the European Food Safety Agency published in January 2019. It highlighted concerns about the active substance being toxic for humans and present in too great a concentration in ground water, an EFSA spokesman said in an email.

The EU prohibited the use of three so-called neonicotinoids everywhere except greenhouses in April 2018. France has already outlawed all four insecticides and one other, including in greenhouses.

In Canada, thiacloprid picked up full registration from the federal Pest Management Regulatory Agency in 2007 and is sold by Bayer under the Calypso 480 SC brand.

The product is registered in the six eastern provinces and British Columbia for use in pome fruit, such as apples and pears, to control Oriental fruit moth, apple maggot and leafhopper, among others.

Bayer CropScience Canada bills the product as “the first new truly broad-spectrum insecticide for apple and pear growers since the organophosphates in the 1960s.”

— Reporting for Reuters by Marine Strauss. Includes files from Glacier FarmMedia Network staff.