Bees against cancer
How a pensioner from Tatarstan beat the system and forced a major agricultural holding to switch to a safer method of cultivating fields.
A beekeeper from a small village was able to prove the presence of dangerous pesticides in the fields of a major producer of milk and cheese, which are sold throughout Russia and marketed as environmentally friendly. The price of revealing the truth was the death of several thousand bees.
A few days ago, the 62-year-old owner of a destroyed apiary received a writ of execution for 435 rubles from an agricultural firm found to be in violation of the law. The pensioner spent nearly two years in court trying to prove his case. For beekeepers in Tatarstan, this is the first victory in 10 years.
How the system was broken, and why the death of bees affects each of us—in the material from "NeMoskva."
Beekeeper and holding
Nurulla Zakirov was born and raised in a small village Sheka, 100 km from Kazan. He took up beekeeping after retiring: he has over 30 hives in his garden and an old UAZ with a trailer.
The state farm where he used to work as an electrician was long ago privatized and became known as the Severny Agricultural Enterprise. Today, its fields belong to Vamin group of companies — a major agricultural holding company that produces up to 600 tons of milk per day from its cows and produces butter and cheese. The company positions itself as a "national supplier," and its products are sold in Magnit, Perekrestok, Lenta, and METRO stores.
“The milk used for production comes from our own livestock farms,” is approved on the company's website. — As a result, we obtain a natural and environmentally friendly product of the highest quality.”
Nurulla Zakirov learned that the agricultural holding was using hazardous pesticides to treat its fields early in the morning of June 22, 2021.
I went out to the apiary and there were dead bees lying everywhere, he recalls. — I open the hive and see that everything is dead, you can shovel it out. That's how I lost 32 hives and a ton of honey.
A neighbor who also kept bees lost even more hives—50. They went to the director of the farm, but he wouldn't even see them.
A pensioner reported a massive bee die-off to the police. A special commission consisting of a veterinarian and a local government representative was supposed to respond, but in reality, it couldn't even convene: the Tatar holiday of Sabantuy was celebrated that day.
After this, Nurulla Zakirov's daughter, who lives in Kazan and works as a salesperson at a plumbing supply store, came to his defense. She filmed a video of the dead bees and posted it on all publicly accessible social media platforms.
This video went viral, and only then did the commission finally arrive, - He speaks Lyalya Shakirova. - But instead of helping, they started accusing the father of having sick bees and lacking an apiary registration certificate. The veterinarian seemed unaware of the neighboring village, where bees had also died, because its residents didn't raise any alarm or complain.
The injured beekeeper's daughter threatened to take the matter to court, but her lack of legal experience resulted in a loss of 30 rubles: this money was spent on laboratory testing of the dead bees, which never yielded any concrete results.
The laboratories did not understand what kind of poison to look for, so the agricultural holding avoided punishment that time. — Lyalya Shakirova is convinced. — Exactly one year later, on June 22nd, the bees in our and our neighbors' apiaries died again. But this time, we knew how to protect our rights.
Poisonous experience
Scientists call bees the most sensitive indicators of natural processes. In search of pollen, these insects can fly seven kilometers from their hives, monitoring a large area. They are also the first to detect excess levels of toxic substances in plants, which subsequently end up on our tables (or are used as feed for animals producing milk and meat).
Farmers use pesticides to control pests and weeds. When spraying fields with Class I and II hazardous substances, they are required to notify beekeepers at least three days in advance—giving them time to close their hives or relocate their apiary. This is because the sprayed dose of poison is lethal to a small insect like a bee.
This same poison also poses a danger to humans, as it enters the body with food and remains there forever, later resulting in cancer and other diseases.
Russian beekeepers have been complaining about widespread poisoning for years, but the law rarely takes their side.
To reach court, the victim must pay for an expert analysis of the dead bees and green material from the agricultural holding's fields. It's impossible to predict the cost of such an analysis, as farmers often keep the name of the pesticide they used to treat their crops secret. Because of this, laboratories must test one pesticide after another, and each test costs several thousand rubles.
The commission that comes to document the mass death of bees often intimidates beekeepers by saying that the tests will cost 30-40 thousand rubles, and for a villager these are terrifying figures. says Shavkat Khairullin, Chairman of the public organization "Beekeepers of Tatarstan". That is why many give up at this stage, allowing farmers to avoid responsibility for mass poisoning..
"Beekeepers of Tatarstan" contacted Lyalya Shakirova back in 2021 after seeing her video about dead bees. They taught her how to properly collect evidence of dead bees, draw up inspection reports for a dead apiary, allocate costs for examinations, calculate damages, and prepare a lawsuit.
When the bees died for the second time, my father no longer wanted to call any commissions; he gave up, admits Lyalya Shakirova. — I myself had little faith that it would even go to court. However, I wanted the commission to at least come, walk around the apiary in 40-degree heat, and see the harsh conditions the beekeepers were working in and how difficult it was for them to bury their life's work.
Immediately after the death of the bees, employees of the Severny agricultural enterprise confirmed Journalists reported that from June 13 to 22, they used a Class I hazardous chemical on their rapeseed fields—a crop used to produce biofuel. The farmers emphasized that they only did this at night, when bees are not flying. Moreover, the rapeseed itself had not yet flowered at the time of application, so bees simply had no business in these fields.
However, this time, research conducted in a Moscow laboratory detected fipronil, a highly toxic, Class I hazardous substance, in the dead bees. It was also found in the green matter removed from the agricultural holding's fields that day.
After this, the beekeeper went to court.
At the first hearings, the Severny representative denied guilt and claimed there was another state farm that could have poisoned our bees. He seized on every opportunity to delay the trial. — says Lyalya Shakirova.
In May 2023, the court sided with the beekeeper. During the trial, it was also revealed that the agricultural holding had sprayed its fields with a highly toxic substance during strong gusts of wind, thereby violating state environmental regulations.
Meanwhile, fipronil may cause People experience damage to their kidneys, liver, and thyroid gland. The last major scandal involving this highly toxic substance inflamed in 2017, when Russian veterinarians discovered it in egg powder from France.
At the same time, laboratory staff told Lyalya Shakirova that they only acquired reagents for detecting this drug in dead bees in 2022, so beekeepers were, in a sense, lucky.
Shakirova does not rule out the possibility that her father's bees also died from fipronil in 2021, but traces of it could not be detected due to a lack of reagents.
The defendant attempted to challenge the court's decision on appeal. According to the case file, he questioned the veracity of the analysis of the dead bees and green matter, and also suggested that the bees were infected with "American or European foulbrood."
The higher court did not agree with the farmers' complaint and upheld the district court's decision.
Beekeepers gather in a swarm
At the end of March, Nurulla Zakirov finally received a writ of execution for 346 rubles in damages, plus compensation for the costs of expert assessments, legal fees, and state fees.
From the beginning to the very end, we were supported in this fight by the Association of Beekeepers of Tatarstan, — Lyalya Shakirova clarifies. — Including оThey didn't pay for the examinations, the lawyer's work, or other legal costs, because the father simply couldn't cover such expenses with his 10 ruble pension.
Help was even needed to obtain a writ of execution: Nurulla Zakirov was simply not allowed into court. As a result, they had to call on an association member who had previously worked as a police officer and was familiar with the law: he helped the beekeeper collect all the papers and hand them over to the bailiffs for execution.
Zakirov became the first beekeeper in Tatarstan to win a lawsuit against a major agricultural company in the last 10 years. His daughter now advises other victims: she operates the hotline for the Tatarstan Beekeepers Association and travels to sites of mass bee deaths to help collect evidence. During the summer season, calls begin as early as three in the morning: by this time, the bees are already flying, and apiary owners discover the deaths.
First of all, it is necessary to correctly draw up a sampling report, as a lot in the subsequent court case depends on this, — instructs Lyalya Shakirova. "Sometimes we have to call the committee members several times to make sure they get everything right. We literally write some documents from dictation."
She calls on even those beekeepers who do not have an officially issued apiary passport to protect their rights.
There are 11 thousand beekeepers in Tatarstan, and only a few have an apiary passport, explains Shakirova. — Commission members often threaten that without this document, they won't be able to prove anything. But we, for example, didn't have an apiary passport, and we still proved the poisoning. Because by law, bees can't be killed, even without a passport.
According to Shavkat Khairullin, head of the association, between two and two and a half thousand hives perish in Tatarstan every year. However, only a few dare to fight the farmers: last year, only four beekeepers agreed to submit their dead bees for examination.
Unfortunately, in none of these cases were the laboratories able to identify the poison and give us grounds for going to court, Khairullin states. — But this is no reason to give up. On the contrary, we need to gain experience, not give in, and not remain silent. Moreover, there are results in other regions: beekeepers win in court, pThe practice is gathering momentum across Russia, and people are starting to use it.
Among the victories of the last year, the biggest one was recorded in Tomsk region: there, beekeepers who filed a class action lawsuit were able to win more than nine million rubles for the death of their hives in July 2022. According to the prosecutor's office, the mass death of bees in four districts occurred because five agricultural enterprises simultaneously violated the law.
More than three million rubles won a lawsuit a family of beekeepers from Bryansk region, which lost 70 hives in the summer of 2022.
About two million rubles two beekeepers were able to get from Omsk region: Their bees also died from fipronil, and the legal battle took almost three years.
В Bashkortostan one of the beekeepers smog will suealmost one and a half million rubles an airline whose plane turned directly over populated areas while spraying crops, continuing to spray pesticides.
Shavkat Khairullin believes that the more active beekeepers are, the fewer bees die. For example, in Tatarstan, the peak of bee poisonings occurred in 2019, when 25,000 hives perished in a single summer. Over the past four years, this number has decreased tenfold, and the number of beekeepers' association members has grown from 20 to 400.
When beekeepers became more active and united, farmers and officials changed tactics, he shares his observations. — At the direction of the Minister of Agriculture, we now meet at least once a quarter and sit down at the same table, not as two warring camps. On the contrary, we're trying to solve the problem. And the Minister is already openly saying that the land is polluted due to the excessive use of pesticides. And that it's no longer easy to produce organic produce, even if you want to.
As for Nurulla Zakirov's court victory, the residents of Sheka and other surrounding villages felt its impact last year: the holding company stopped using pesticides and began treating its fields with harmless biochemicals. As a result, the 2023 season passed without any pesticides for local beekeepers.
The holding company probably realized that it would have to pay a fine for breaking the law. — says Lyalya Shakirova. — And that beekeepers can sting.
