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Neonicotinoids, a class of pesticides used widely in the U.S., are thought to be responsible for the mass disappearance of entire bee colonies.
Credit: Owen Humphreys/PA Wire via AP Images

As the European Union moves to phase out 22 toxic pesticides, a new study raises the question of what will happen to crops without them. In the United States, growers rely on many pesticides that other countries have banned.

Many farm groups in the U.S. argue that there are no acceptable alternatives to these pesticides – that without them, crop yields would drop. But when it comes to one major crop – soybeans – one controversial pesticide class known as neonicotinoids may actually do nothing to help soy crops, according to a new federal study.

“There are no clear or consistent economic benefits of neonicotinoid seed treatments,” the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency study says. Previous studies have shown that in most cases, there isn’t a difference in yield between soybean seeds treated with these pesticides and soybean seeds that didn’t receive any insect control.

In many cases, Europe is far ahead of the United States when it comes to banning certain pesticides. Here are five pesticides allowed in the U.S. but prohibited elsewhere:

1. Neonicotinoids, or “neonics,” are the main suspect in the mysterious mass disappearance of entire bee colonies and work as nerve agents on the bees. In 2013, the European Union voted to ban three of the most common: imidacloprid, clothianidin and thiamethoxam. Those pesticides, and others in the neonic class, are still used widely in the United States, to much controversy. Despite a 2013 lawsuit from a coalition of activists and beekeepers, the EPA has said it will continue to review evidence of neonics’ effects on bees until 2018.

2. Paraquat, a pesticide linked to Parkinson’s disease, is banned in China and the European Union but not the U.S. It’s highly toxic and kills weeds on contact. A 2009 UCLA study found that a person exposed to paraquat and two other pesticides is three times as likely to develop Parkinson’s disease. Paraquat also can cause kidney damage and difficulty breathing. The EU voted to ban paraquat in 2007, and China approved a ban in 2012. Paraquat is famous for two things: the Drug Enforcement Administration’s spraying of Mexican marijuana fields in the 1970s, and being a leading agent of suicide in Asia and other areas.