The National Farmers Union Ontario says it’s a missed opportunity.

Vice-President Ann Slater says the Ontario Bee Health Working Group Report could have promoted the use of more ecological farm practices.

But Slater says that would not have been in the interests of the corporate agribusinesses which make money selling farmers chemicals.

And she argues the Working Group was weighted with reps from those businesses and field crop growers.

The NFU-O is calling on the federal Pesticide Management Regulatory Agency to impose a five-year moratorium on the use of neo-nic seed treatments for field crops to allow time for independent research on their impact on bees.

On the positive side, NFU-O Co-ordinator Karen Eatwell is welcoming the government’s plan to set up a new Ontario Pollinator Health Working Group.

Eatwell is encouraging Premier and Agriculture Minister Kathleen Wynne to give a greater role to ecological and organic farmers as well as beekeepers in that new group, while limiting the involvement of multinational chemical and seed companies and their representative organisations.