"Conservationists on Wednesday notified the Trump administration that they would sue over its reversal of a 2014 decision prohibiting bee-killing pesticides and genetically modified crops on U.S. wildlife refuges.

The reversal, issued on Aug. 2 in a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service memo, suggested that neonicotinoid pesticides, or neonics, were needed for “farming practices” in refuge areas where that was allowed.

Cultivation of biotech crops, engineered to resist pests and withstand herbicides, has helped maximize crop production on dozens of wildlife refuges. "

Laura Zuckerman reports for Reuters August 8, 2018. [2]