For related articles and more information, please visit OCA’s Genetic Engineering page, Millions Against Monsanto page, and our Colony Collapse Disorder page.

I’m doing something very odd this week: speaking at the annual conference of Croplife America, the main trade group for the US agrichemical industry. Croplife members include Monsanto, Dow, Bayer, and Syngenta, all massive multinational companies I write about regularly and witheringly. I am astonished that Croplife wants to hear what I have to say-what I think of the group’s member companies and their products is a matter of public record-and am curious to hear what they have to say to me.

As I prepared for the conference, a few interesting news items on the industry crossed my desk.

* As I’ve written before, Bayer’s neonicotinoid pesticides, which now coat upwards of 90 percent of US corn seeds and seeds of increasing portions of other major crops like soy, have emerged as a likely trigger for colony collapse disorder. Watch this NBC News report from last week linking bee kills in Minnesota to Bayer’s highly profitable product.

Meanwhile, the Columbus Dispatch reports similar bee die-offs in Ohio farm country, with beekeepers there, too, pointing the finger at Bayer.

* One of my biggest complaints about the agrichemical industry it its market dominance. As I say above, more than 90 percent of corn seeds planted today are treated with Bayer’s pesticide. What if a farmer wants to opt out, to plant seeds free of neonicotinoids? Good luck. According to a Pesticide Action Network press release I received today, farmers in the midwest are complaining that it’s virtually impossible to buy untreated seeds. In other words, farmers there have two choices: either pay up for Bayer’s poison, or exit the corn-growing business.