SB 65 and the Neonic Seed Permission Slip

The Colorado Sun is out with a new piece by Michael Booth on a brewing fight at the Capitol: Senate Bill 65, aimed at restricting the use of seeds coated with neonicotinoid pesticides, the “neonics” that have become standard on big row-crop farms.

Booth lays out the battle lines clearly. Farm, seed, and chemical interests say neonics are a targeted, plant-grown protection that helps prevent costly insect damage without the old-school “spray everything” approach. Environmental and conservation groups counter that neonics harm pollinators and other insects, contaminate water via runoff, and are being used as a blanket “insurance policy” whether the farm actually has a pest problem or not.

The Bullet Point Brief

• SB 65 would turn seed treatment into a permission slip. Farmers would need approval based on pest vulnerability and site history, with a third-party auditor issuing certificates before they can buy neonic-coated seed. Because nothing says “efficient agriculture” like paperwork from someone who has never fixed a pivot at 2 a.m.
• Farm groups are furious, and they are not hiding it. The Colorado Farm Bureau calls it a hit on what they say is their “most effective, efficient, safe and affordable” pest tool, warning the bureaucracy plus potential yield loss is a devastating one-two punch.
• The Governor is on Team Restriction. The article reports Gov. Jared Polis supports the seed-licensing approach and frames it as limiting “unnecessary” insecticide use, pointing to actions in other states and the European Union.
• The advocates are selling “prescription” politics. Environment Colorado’s Henry Stiles compares neonics to antibiotics: you should not get them “over the counter,” you should need a “prescription.” It’s a cute analogy, right up until you realize Colorado farmers are not shopping for seed at Walgreens.
• Even this bill admits reality with a carve-out. After negotiations, neonic-coated sugar beet seeds were exempted because the industry argued they do not have alternatives for pest control and should not face annual certification. Translation: when the crop is important enough, the legislature suddenly discovers nuance.

My Bottom Line

The audacity here is not subtle. Legislators who know nothing about farming, nothing about the razor-thin margins of a small family operation, and nothing about the fact that one bad storm or one ugly bug year can wipe out your entire season, are lining up to micromanage the most basic planting decisions in rural Colorado.

And let’s be honest about what this is. It is virtue signaling to a rabid environmental base dressed up as “sustainability,” with a third-party permission structure that adds cost, delay, and uncertainty to people who already live with weather risk, market risk, equipment risk, water risk, and pest risk. The Denver/Boulder policy class gets to feel morally superior. Farmers get to gamble their livelihoods against a new bureaucracy.

The article even shows the tell. Sugar beets got carved out because there are no alternatives, meaning the legislature is willing to admit these tools can be necessary. But for corn, wheat, and soy, the answer is: prove it, file it, certify it, and hope the auditor agrees. That is not “helping farmers.” That is treating farmers like suspects.

And for the folks keeping score at home: none of this does a single thing for affordability in Colorado. Not groceries. Not fuel. Not housing. It just adds friction and cost to food production, while rural Colorado gets ignored again because it is politically convenient. They should be ashamed. They won’t be. Because they don’t care about the people who feed and fuel the world.

Source: The Colorado Sun