Silent Fields: How Neonics Are Reshaping Life on Earth

Written by Laura Rose; Edited by Nicki Steinberger, Ph.D.

Originally published by A Voice For Choice Advocacy on August 07, 2025.

EDITOR’S SUMMARY: Pesticides are often associated with bee die-offs—but the reach of neonicotinoids goes much further. These widely used chemicals touch your food, water, and local environment in ways that aren’t obvious or disclosed. From grocery staples to garden centers, the exposure risk is more common and more complex than most people realize. Explore how regulation, marketing, and industrial shortcuts have kept the full picture hidden, and learn what actions you can take to protect your health, support pollinators, and shift the system from the ground up.

Corn, soybeans, wheat, and canola—these staple ingredients quietly power much of the modern food supply. But tied to their cultivation is a chemical used during the growing process—one that’s raising concern among scientists and advocates. Large-scale agriculture relies on insecticides—a subset of pesticides—to prevent damage from pests considered harmful. Among them, neonicotinoids have become the most widely used pest control method for these and other crops in the United States over the past decade. Mounting evidence shows that these chemicals pose serious risks to human health, pollinators, water, and soil. With more awareness of how and where they’re used, it’s possible to start reducing your exposure.

What neonics are designed to do

Neonicotinoids (commonly known as “neonics”) are a family of insecticides used to eliminate insects from crops, golf courses, lawns, garden plants, and even flea control products for pets and livestock. Developed in the mid-1990s, most neonics used today are applied to high-acreage commodity crops—the same ones that serve as the foundation for many industrial food formulations, oils, and processed products. Supporters of neonics present them as essential to protect agricultural plants from harmful and invasive pests. This protection leads to significantly increased crop yields, helping to feed a growing population and contributing billions of dollars to the U.S. agricultural economy.

Additionally, industry advocates argue that without neonics, more farmland would have to be cleared, including environmentally sensitive areas crucial for preserving water, soil, and wildlife. While these benefits are real, neonicotinoids come with serious downsides. Like all insecticides, they don’t discriminate—targeting not just harmful pests but also beneficial insects and other small creatures in the environment. Smaller organisms are more vulnerable to the toxic impact, with tiny pollinators, aquatic insects, and soil life often the most affected.

Proponents of neonics often assume these chemicals are doing their job—but are they? Research from Penn State suggests otherwise. In the peer-reviewed study "Large-Scale Deployment of Seed Treatments Has Driven Rapid Increase in Use of Neonicotinoid Insecticides and Preemptive Pest Management in U.S. Field Crops," researchers reported that only two to five percent of seed-applied neonics actually become systemic in the plant—raising serious concerns about both efficacy and environmental exposure. The review was widely covered in the media under the headline "Rapid increase in neonicotinoid insecticides driven by seed treatments."

The remaining 95%, according to Associate Professor of Entomology John Tooker, doesn’t benefit the plant at all. Instead, it lingers in the soil or runs off into surrounding water and vegetation, contaminating ecosystems far beyond the field. “This pattern suggests that neonicotinoids are often being used as an ‘insurance policy’ against uncertain insect attack, rather than in response to a documented pest threat,” Tooker said. Once released into the environment, they can persist for years and travel long distances via rain or irrigation. This raises a critical question: Does the desire to maintain neonic use on commodity crops truly outweigh the environmental damage they leave behind?

Toxic Impact on Pollinators and People

A quick internet search reveals hundreds of studies pointing to neonicotinoids as a leading cause of massive bee and pollinator die-offs around the globe. These include comprehensive academic assessments, extensive research from Cornell University, and even a 2017 field study partially funded by Bayer and Syngenta that still documented clear harm to wild bee species—highlighting the limits of industry-backed science. Bees are particularly vulnerable to neonicotinoids because these chemicals bind irreversibly to nicotinic acetylcholine receptors in their central nervous systems. This causes continuous nerve firing, leading to tremors, paralysis, and death. Exposed insects often shake, twitch, or lose coordination, impairing their ability to forage or return to the hive. Bees come into contact with neonics through spray residue or by consuming contaminated pollen and nectar.

According to the Center for Food Safety, a single exposure can impair a bee’s ability to learn, fly, and navigate—throwing off its sense of direction and timing during essential tasks like pollination. This can also disrupt reproduction across multiple generations of bees. If the bee survives long enough, it may carry the substance back to the hive, weakening the colony’s defenses against parasites like varroa mites—one of the leading threats to bee populations worldwide. According to Kendra Klein, co-author of a 2019 research paper on acute insecticide toxicity loading, this is the “second Silent Spring.” As she explains, “Neonics are like a new DDT, except they are a thousand times more toxic to bees than DDT was."

Your fresh food supply is also at risk—even if it’s grown in your own backyard. Pollinators must visit the flowers of many homegrown fruits, vegetables, and herbs—like tomatoes, cucumbers, strawberries, and basil—for those plants to bear food. Bees, in particular, play a vital role in the broader food system, with more than 100 U.S. crops—including fruits, vegetables, and nuts—relying on their delicate work of pollination. The loss of bees carries serious financial consequences as well. If bees were to go extinct, the U.S. could face an estimated $18 billion loss in vital food crops and $350 million in annual honey production. Yet despite their immense value, wild pollinators remain exposed to neonics, with no protections shielding them from harm.

A 2021 study titled "Population decline in a ground-nesting solitary squash bee (Eucera pruinosa) following exposure to a neonicotinoid insecticide treated crop (Cucurbita pepo)" found that wild, ground-nesting bees exposed to neonicotinoids initiated 85 percent fewer nests, collected 5 times less pollen, and produced 89 percent fewer offspring than bees not exposed. The findings highlight how even soil-applied neonics can severely disrupt bee behavior, nesting, and reproduction in real-world agricultural settings. Beyond the hive, the damage continues. Bees aren’t the only ones whose buzz is being cut short. Mounting evidence links neonicotinoids to declines in other pollinators like monarch butterflies and small birds, the collapse of fisheries, and even birth defects in white-tailed deer, as documented in “Neonicotinoid Residues in Wildflowers, a Potential Route of Chronic Exposure for Bees” (Environmental Science & Technology).

The harm from neonics isn’t limited to the natural world. People—especially children—are at risk, too. About half of the U.S. population over age three was found to have been exposed to neonics, based on the first nationwide assessment of its kind. Ingestion is one of the most common routes of exposure. These chemicals show up in everyday foods made from treated ingredients, including cereal, tortillas, bread, crackers, and baby food. For many crops—especially corn—it’s nearly impossible for farmers to purchase untreated seeds. More than 90 percent of all corn, and between 44 and 50 percent of soybeans, are grown from seeds coated with neonics. Baby food made from conventionally grown apples, cherries, and strawberries can also contain residues.

A worldwide survey reported elevated levels of neonics in honey. Pesticide contamination was also widespread in food, with an analysis of conventionally grown (non‑organic) produce showing residues in 80 percent of spinach and 73 percent of applesauce samples. Washing or peeling these fruits and vegetables does not remove the chemicals. Neonicotinoids are also applied to leafy greens, tomatoes, nuts, wine grapes, and more. Almonds—produced primarily in California—are among the most heavily treated. And while most store-bought nuts come packaged in bags, product labels don’t disclose how many pesticides were used to grow them.

Tap water contamination by neonicotinoids is documented in a 2019 review published in Environmental Health, titled “Trends in neonicotinoid pesticide residues in food and water in the United States, 1999–2015.” The authors point out that standard water treatment methods may not effectively remove these chemicals, particularly imidacloprid, which appears at similar levels in untreated and treated water samples. The study also notes that chlorination during water treatment may react with these chemicals, forming new and potentially harmful byproducts. One key finding summarized in the review states:

“A recent study in Iowa reported that neonicotinoids can persist during water treatment and distribution, and upon testing drinking water from the treatment system detected clothianidin (3890–57,300 ppt), imidacloprid (1220–39,500 ppt), and thiamethoxam (240–4150 ppt) in 100 percent of samples they collected.”

Poisoning from everyday household products is another source of concern. Beyond its presence in water, imidacloprid is also widely used in consumer pest-control products, including bed bug sprays and pet flea treatments. It has been linked to 1,630 reported poisoning cases in the past decade, according to data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Reported symptoms range from skin rashes and muscle tremors to difficulty breathing, vomiting, wheezing, lockjaw, memory loss, and renal failure. While human epidemiological data is still limited, early-stage research continues to raise concerns. In the study "Imidacloprid as reproductive toxicant and endocrine disruptor: investigations in laboratory animals," imidacloprid demonstrated significant reproductive toxicity in female rats:

“Like many pesticides, imidacloprid may also act as [an] endocrine disrupting chemical (EDC). It may disrupt the metabolic homeostasis, contribute to obesity, and disrupt steroidogenesis by inhibiting cytochrome P450 (CYP) enzyme activities. All these adverse effects of imidacloprid may pose a serious risk for reproduction and development with long-term consequences in adulthood.”

The effect on soil health

Soil is distinct from dirt and is at risk of contamination by neonics. For clarity, dirt is a loose collection of sand, silt, clay, and rocks, whereas soil is a complex ecosystem that supports plant life. Soil microbes play a vital role in enhancing crop health, resilience, and productivity—factors that can ultimately influence the nutrient content and quality of the food you eat. Without them, soil becomes just dirt—unable to support most life. Neonics, used to control so-called “pests,” can actually backfire by wiping out the beneficial insects and soil microbes that would otherwise help keep harmful populations in check.

Neonics don’t stay confined to farms—they leach into surrounding wildlands. A 2014 research abstract, “Widespread Occurrence of Neonicotinoid Insecticides in Streams in a High Corn and Soybean Producing Region, USA,” cited contamination in local streams during planting season in the Midwest. Rain runoff carried seed treatments into nearby ecosystems. These chemicals reach the plant in two ways: either applied directly to the soil as a “drench” around the roots or as a coating on the seed itself. In both cases, the chemical is absorbed into the plant, making its nectar, pollen, leaves, stems, and fruit toxic.

You may also encounter neonics at your local garden center. Many potted plants have historically received neonic treatments in the soil to prevent infestations like grubs and weevils. Neonicotinoids are commonly found in flower bulbs, lawn applications, and even commercial sprays used on apples, pears, and various greenhouse crops—making exposure more widespread than many people realize. In California, some protections are now in place. The Department of Pesticide Regulation adopted AB 363, enacted in 2023, which began restricting the retail sale of garden and nursery products containing neonics in 2025.

As of midyear, the restriction is active, though some lingering inventory may still appear on store shelves while enforcement continues. Use of these products is now limited to licensed pesticide applicators. While this is a step forward, it doesn’t guarantee that plants sold in nurseries are free from neonics—especially if they’re grown off-site. Small, local nurseries that grow their own plants without these chemicals offer the clearest path to staying free of neonics. California native plant nurseries—many of which follow pollinator-safe growing practices—are especially likely to avoid neonicotinoids.

Keeping Neonics Off Your Plate

Seeds coated with neonics are classified as “treated articles” under an EPA exemption. As a result, the agency does not consider them a direct pesticide application and does not track their use. This regulatory loophole has been widely criticized by environmental groups and scientists, who argue that neonic-treated seeds should fall under stricter regulation due to their environmental impact—particularly on pollinators. A lawsuit challenging the EPA’s interpretation was filed in 2023, but in November 2024, the court upheld the agency’s position. That said, you don’t have to wait for regulators, seed companies, farmers, or the public to align on the risks of neonicotinoids—there are steps you can take right now to avoid them. Keep a sharp eye on food packaging labels—high-risk crops often appear under less familiar names like acetic acid (from corn), hydrolyzed soy protein, or durum (a variety of wheat).

Buying organic offers added assurance—especially when your food comes from community-based farms you can trace back to their growing practices. Together, these choices help reduce your exposure to neonics and other agricultural chemicals. Use your purchasing power to reduce neonic exposure in your home and local environment. Choosing more transparent brands, supporting pollinator-friendly practices—like gardening with natural methods and planting native species that nourish local bees and butterflies—and staying informed can all make a difference. Kari Warberg Block, founder of EarthKind—a company offering alternatives to neonicotinoid pesticides—emphasizes that reducing your reliance on these chemicals doesn’t require sweeping action. It begins with small, intentional steps. She encourages you to protect your home and food supply by working with nature rather than against it.

Reach out to your legislators and urge them to support policies that protect bees, soil, and water. Ask for stronger oversight of neonics, greater accountability in pesticide use, and incentives for farmers to adopt safer, more sustainable practices—including organic methods where possible. In California, legislative efforts are underway to restrict bee‑killing pesticides and promote stronger stewardship and best management practices. One pivotal law—AB 1752—was signed in October 2023, empowering county agricultural commissioners to issue civil penalties (up to $3,000 per violation) against those who fail to protect pollinators. Activism proved effective in 2023 when New York became the first state to ban neonicotinoid‑treated seeds. Other states—including Vermont and Illinois—are now considering similar legislation.

Emerging technologies may help reduce the impact of pesticides on pollinators. One example is a pollen-sized microparticle in development by the startup Beemmunity, designed to bind to toxic pesticides in a bee’s gut. The goal is to prevent absorption and allow the insect to excrete the chemicals safely. As of 2024, the product remains in early-stage development but has shown encouraging results in initial trials. James Webb, M.S., co-founder of Beemmunity, explains:

“We have a solution whereby beekeepers can feed their bees our microparticle products in pollen patties or in a sugar syrup, and it allows them to detoxify the hive of any pesticides that they might find.”

Beyond this, advances in precision agriculture enable farmers to monitor pest threats and apply pesticides with far greater accuracy—using drones, in-field sensors, and AI analytics. Studies show that drone-based spraying can reduce pesticide use by 40–80 percent, depending on the context. Meanwhile, seed innovation and crop breeding programs—such as those developing natural pest resistance or traits compatible with low-risk treatments—have been shown to significantly cut insecticide applications without compromising yield.

Transforming how crops are grown and protected will take a village—but it’s doable. When government regulators, beekeepers, researchers, and agro-farmers work together toward smarter solutions, progress becomes possible. Advances in precision agriculture and crop breeding show that alternatives exist. And of course, your daily choices—how you shop, what you plant, and which systems you support—can be a powerful part of the solution when they shift away from industrial agriculture and toward regenerative practices.

~

If you've found value in this article, please cross-post and restack it!

To support the research and health education of AVFC editorial, please consider making a donation today. Thank you.