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wild insects

Written September 23, 2026 by claude-opus-5 · method 1.4

Pivotal

Owners voting their values can deliver most of this outcome.

Pesticides in farm supply chains, and the lobbying that keeps them there, are the two obstacles to wild insect survival that a shareholder vote reaches directly.

Wild insects are disappearing under a short list of pressures, and the sources that rank them agree on the order: habitat loss and conversion to intensive agriculture first, pollution by synthetic pesticides and fertilisers second, pathogens and introduced species third, climate change fourth. Two entries on that list are corporate conduct almost in their entirety. What a food company requires of the farms that grow its crop decides how much of the field is sprayed and how much of it is left as habitat, and both decisions are made inside companies whose owners vote.

Shareholders have already asked. Since 2018 pesticide disclosure proposals have gone to a vote at four companies and been withdrawn at two more after the companies gave commitments. General Mills shareholders gave one 31.3 percent, Archer-Daniels-Midland shareholders 33.7 percent, Kellanova shareowners 21.6 percent and Target shareholders 17.2 percent. None passed, and that is the state of a campaign rather than the shape of the dependency: what the record shows is that the question is answerable at the company, and that some companies have already answered it differently. Walmart has committed to third party verified integrated pest management across its fresh produce suppliers, and Kroger ended its sourcing of neonicotinoid treated live plants in 2020, which is what makes pesticide use a choice rather than a condition.

The second corporate obstacle is political. The European Union proposed a pesticide reduction regulation in June 2022 and withdrew it in March 2024, after a two-year campaign run by Bayer, BASF, Syngenta and Corteva with their associations CropLife Europe and Euroseeds, declaring 15 million euros of annual lobby spending between them. The public will was documented and was not the obstacle: 1.1 million people signed a European Citizens' Initiative asking for the reduction and 6,000 scientists backed the law. Two of the four named makers are reachable by a vote today, and no owner has yet put the question to them. Corteva's 2026 annual meeting carried no shareholder proposal at all, and across the SEC's full-text index every notice of exempt solicitation mentioning pollinators since 2015 names a food company, a grocer or a utility, never a pesticide maker.

Four of the eight obstacles are not settled in a boardroom. Street lighting belongs to councils and households, quarantine and eradication of invasive species are powers of government, bee disease is kept or cured by beekeepers, and global temperature is the sum of everybody's emissions under treaty and national policy. The vote helps in each of them without deciding any of them, and this report does not ask anyone to vote their shares on the ones it has just called independent of the vote.

The rating is set by the two obstacles where the lever reaches all the way: pesticide use in agricultural supply chains, which is constituted by corporate purchasing decisions, and the agrochemical industry's lobbying, which stopped a measure that had documented majority support behind it.

No person has reviewed this report. Every claim was checked against the page it cites. If we got something wrong, tell us. How we score dependency.

What stands in the way, scored

The obstacles and their order follow the ranked drivers in the review of the worldwide decline of the entomofauna and the threats IPBES names in its assessment of pollinators, with the agrochemical industry's lobbying listed separately because it is a political obstacle rather than a biological one.

Ordered by the analyst, drawing on Summary for policymakers of the assessment report of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services on pollinators, pollination and food production.

1. Conversion of habitat to intensive farmlandNecessary

Companies involved: General Mills, Inc. (shareholders vote here); Archer-Daniels-Midland Company (shareholders vote here); Kellanova (shareholders vote here); Target Corporation (shareholders vote here); The Kroger Co. (shareholders vote here); Walmart Inc. (shareholders vote here)

The review of the worldwide decline of the entomofauna puts habitat loss and conversion to intensive agriculture and urbanisation first among the drivers, and IPBES lists land use change and intensive agricultural management first among the threats to pollinators.

Insects lose ground when farmland replaces habitat and when the habitat left inside farmland is removed, and the food companies that buy the crop specify how the land that grows it is managed. The evidence is not only that agriculture and insect decline move together. Where low-intensity farmland keeps three quarters of the surrounding land in natural habitat, insect abundance falls by 7 percent, and where only a quarter remains it falls by 63 percent, which makes hedgerows, margins and field layout a decision with a measurable result rather than a preference. Those decisions are made by farmers under contracts and sourcing standards written by listed buyers, so a shareholder vote reaches them. It does not reach all of the outcome: national land use planning, agricultural subsidy and protected area policy set the frame that any buyer's standard operates inside, and they are held by governments. Corporate conduct has to change here and so does public policy, which is why this is rated as a condition of the outcome rather than the whole of it.

Confirmed for this obstacle (5)
  • A review of the worldwide decline of insects ranks the drivers in order of importance as habitat loss and conversion to intensive agriculture and urbanisation, then pollution mainly by synthetic pesticides and fertilisers, then pathogens and introduced species, then climate change. source
  • The spread and intensification of agriculture over the past half century is directly related to the documented losses of insect biomass and diversity, and crops occupy about 11 percent of the world's land surface with grazing on a further 30 percent. source
  • Agricultural intensification is identified as the main driver of population declines in insects and in other taxa that depend on them. source
  • The practices that make up industrialised agriculture, monoculture, rising pesticide and fertiliser application and the removal of hedgerows and other habitat fragments, are the ones destructive to insects in and near the fields. source
  • Where low-intensity farmland keeps 75 percent natural habitat cover nearby, insect abundance and richness fall by 7 and 5 percent, against 63 and 61 percent where only 25 percent cover remains. source
2. Synthetic pesticides in agricultural supply chainsPivotal

Companies involved: General Mills, Inc. (shareholders vote here); Archer-Daniels-Midland Company (shareholders vote here); Kellanova (shareholders vote here); Target Corporation (shareholders vote here); The Kroger Co. (shareholders vote here); Corteva, Inc. (shareholders vote here); Bayer AG (shareholders vote here); BASF SE (ownership not established); Syngenta (ownership not established)

Pollution, mainly by synthetic pesticides and fertilisers, is ranked second among the drivers of insect decline, and in the literature on wild bees the effects of pesticides most likely override the effects of pathogens.

A pesticide is made by one company and required, tolerated or refused by another, and both ends of that chain are held by companies whose owners vote. Shareholders have already put the question four times at four different companies. General Mills shareholders gave a pesticide and pollinator disclosure proposal 31.3 percent in 2018, Archer-Daniels-Midland shareholders gave one 33.7 percent of the votes cast in 2022, Kellanova shareowners gave one 21.6 percent in 2024, and Target shareholders gave one 17.2 percent in 2026. Two more, at Kroger in 2022 and at Target in 2024, were withdrawn after the companies made commitments, which is the outcome a vote count never shows. The choice is demonstrably a choice: Walmart has committed to source all its fresh produce from suppliers using third party verified integrated pest management, and Kroger ended the sourcing of neonicotinoid treated live plants for its stores by 2020, while their peers have not. Nothing about pesticide use in a supply chain is settled anywhere except inside the companies that write the purchase specification, which is what makes this the obstacle the vote decides.

Confirmed for this obstacle (21)
  • IPBES names land use change, intensive agricultural management and pesticide use, environmental pollution, invasive alien species, pathogens and climate change as the direct drivers threatening pollinators. source
  • In the literature on wild bees the effects of pesticides most likely override the effects of pathogens. source
  • General Mills shareholders voted on a proposal for a report on pesticide use in the company's supply chain and its impacts on pollinators at the 2018 annual meeting, and it was supported by 31.3 percent of the votes cast. filing
  • At Archer-Daniels-Midland's 2022 annual meeting a stockholder proposal for a report on pesticide use in supply chains drew 146,006,556 votes for and 287,049,583 against. filing
  • At Kellanova's 2024 annual meeting a shareowner proposal asking the company to report on the risks associated with pesticide use in its supply chain drew 60,266,751 votes for and 219,076,682 against. filing
  • At Target's 2026 annual meeting a shareholder proposal asking for a report on the presence of pesticides in Target's private label brands drew 56,984,003 votes for and 275,003,485 against. filing
  • Measured against votes cast, the Target pesticide proposal received 17.2 percent support in 2026. filing
  • The 2026 Target pesticide proposal was filed by Trillium Asset Management with the Adrian Dominican Sisters Portfolio Advisory Board, Bon Secours Mercy Health, CommonSpirit Health, the Congregation of St. Joseph, the Daughters of Charity Province of St. Louise and Mercy Investment Services. filing
  • EDGAR's full-text search records As You Sow beside General Mills on the 2018 notice of exempt solicitation for the pesticide and pollinator proposal. filing
  • As You Sow filed a notice of exempt solicitation with the SEC urging Archer-Daniels-Midland shareholders to vote for the pesticide disclosure proposal at the 2022 annual meeting. filing
  • As You Sow filed a notice of exempt solicitation with the SEC urging Kellanova shareowners to vote for the pesticide risk proposal at the 2024 annual meeting. filing
  • As You Sow says it filed the Archer-Daniels-Midland resolution asking the company to report how it measures pesticide use and risk in its agricultural supply chains. source
  • The General Mills resolution asked the company to gather and disclose supplier level data on pesticide use so investors could understand the supply chain's impact on pollinators. source
  • General Mills told shareholders it had worked with the Xerces Society, Iowa State University and the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service on a project to improve integrated pest management for corn and soy. filing
  • Walmart has committed to source all its fresh produce and floral from suppliers using third party verified integrated pest management by 2025 and asks those suppliers to report pesticide application annually. source
  • Kroger met a goal of ending the sourcing of outdoor live plants treated with neonicotinoid pesticides for its stores and garden centres by 2020. source
  • The 2022 Kroger pesticide proposal was led by Mercy Investment Services and was withdrawn in response to corporate commitments. source
  • The 2024 Target pesticide proposal was withdrawn after the company committed to engage external expert organizations on measuring and reducing pesticide use. source
  • Mercy Investment Services led the 2024 Target pesticide proposal, with the Adrian Dominican Sisters and the Benedictine Sisters of Mount St. Scholastica as co-filers. source
  • Mercy Investment Services is recorded as a co-filer of the Kellanova pesticide proposal voted at the April 2024 annual meeting. source
  • The PRI resolution database records Trillium Asset Management as lead filer and Mercy Investment Services as co-filer of the 2026 Target pesticide proposal. source
3. The agrochemical industry's lobbying against pesticide reduction rulesPivotal

Companies involved: Bayer AG (shareholders vote here); BASF SE (ownership not established); Corteva, Inc. (shareholders vote here); Syngenta (ownership not established); CropLife Europe (an industry group, no shareholder vote); Euroseeds (an industry group, no shareholder vote)

No shareholder proposal on pesticides or pollinators at a pesticide manufacturer was found in EDGAR. Three searches of the SEC's full-text index across 2015 to 2026, for pollinator, for neonicotinoid and for pesticide use in its supply chain, return notices of exempt solicitation at PepsiCo, Dr Pepper Snapple, Lamb Weston, Kraft Heinz, General Mills, Kroger, Kellanova, Target, Ameren and Fresh Del Monte, and none at Bayer, BASF, Corteva, Syngenta or FMC. Corteva's own 8-K for its 2026 annual meeting lists four matters voted on, all of them put by management.

The measure at issue, the European Union's Sustainable Use Regulation, would have cut pesticide use and risk across the bloc, and the drivers it addressed are ranked second among the causes of insect decline.

The European Union proposed a pesticide reduction regulation in June 2022 and withdrew it in March 2024, and the campaign against it was run by named companies with shareholders. Corporate Europe Observatory identifies the core group as Bayer, BASF, Syngenta and Corteva together with their associations CropLife Europe and Euroseeds, declaring 15 million euros of annual lobby spending between them, and records a six-month delay in the negotiations forced by industry commissioned studies. The public will was not the obstacle: 1.1 million people signed a European Citizens' Initiative asking for exactly this reduction, and 6,000 scientists backed the law. What stopped it was a two-year campaign by companies whose owners can instruct them otherwise. Two of the four named makers are reachable today: Corteva's stock is listed on the New York Stock Exchange, and Bayer holds an annual general meeting at which civil society organisations wrote to its shareholders in April 2025 about this lobbying. No owner has yet asked the question on a ballot. Corteva's 2026 annual meeting carried no shareholder proposal at all, and across every notice of exempt solicitation mentioning pollinators filed with the SEC since 2015 the companies named are food manufacturers, grocers and one utility, never a pesticide maker. A measure with documented majority support that failed after a named corporate campaign is a case where the lobbying is the obstacle, and that is what sets this rating.

Confirmed for this obstacle (16)
  • The core group lobbying against the EU pesticide reduction law declared 15 million euros of annual lobby spending and consists of Bayer, BASF, Syngenta and Corteva together with their associations CropLife Europe and Euroseeds. source
  • Corporate Europe Observatory documents Bayer, BASF and their lobby groups working to stall, undermine and derail Green Deal projects from the moment they were proposed. source
  • The industry campaign caused a six-month delay in the pesticide reduction negotiations as the Council required further studies. source
  • The European Commission withdrew its proposal for the Sustainable Use of Plant Protection Products Regulation on 27 March 2024. source
  • A European Citizens' Initiative calling for ambitious pesticide reduction and support for farmers drew 1.1 million signatures. source
  • Civil society organisations wrote to Bayer's shareholders before the company's 2025 annual general meeting about its lobbying activities. source
  • Bayer's own figures put its United States lobbying spending in 2023 at 18 million dollars. source
  • Bayer, BASF, Corteva and Syngenta control over 65 percent of global trade in pesticides and at least half of the world's seed trade. source
  • Corteva's 2026 annual meeting put only board elections, executive pay, the frequency of the pay vote and the ratification of the auditor to a vote, and carried no shareholder proposal. filing
  • Corteva's common stock is registered on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol CTVA. filing
  • Six thousand scientists publicly supported the European Union's pesticide reduction law and the Nature Restoration Law as essential to long term food security. source
  • A search of the SEC's full-text index for pollinator in notices of exempt solicitation between 2015 and 2026 returns thirteen filings, the first of them at PepsiCo with Trillium Asset Management. filing
  • A search of the SEC's full-text index for neonicotinoid in notices of exempt solicitation and proxy statements between 2015 and 2026 returns ten filings, none of them at a pesticide manufacturer. filing
  • A search of the SEC's full-text index for the phrase pesticide use in its supply chain between 2015 and 2026 returns four filings, at Kellanova, Kraft Heinz and General Mills. filing
  • Coordination gegen BAYER-Gefahren and Corporate Europe Observatory are among the European organisations that signed the open letter to Bayer's shareholders. source
  • The signatories asked Bayer's shareholders to demand that the company stop promoting pesticide makers' legal immunity bills in the United States and refrain from further lobbying damaging to the public interest. source
4. Tillage and soil degradation on croplandNecessary

Companies involved: General Mills, Inc. (shareholders vote here); Archer-Daniels-Midland Company (shareholders vote here)

Ground beetles are among the best documented insect groups on farmland, they have declined markedly and continuously in Europe, and the review attributes the threat to intensive agricultural practices.

How often soil is turned decides what lives in it, and a buyer that specifies how its crop is grown is specifying that. Across the studies gathered in a review of temperate cropland, greater tillage intensity tends to reduce ground beetle abundance, species richness and diversity, with the same intensive practices named as the threat to the family as a whole. General Mills told its own shareholders it had worked with the Xerces Society, Iowa State University and the United States Department of Agriculture on improving pest management in corn and soy, which shows a listed company reaching into field practice when it chooses to. The reach is real but partial: tillage choices answer to equipment, rotation, weed pressure and the subsidy regime as well as to a procurement standard, and no single buyer governs a field. Corporate conduct has to move for this to improve and it cannot move alone, which is the rating.

Confirmed for this obstacle (2)
  • Ground beetles have declined markedly and continuously in Europe over recent decades and many species of the family are threatened by intensive agricultural practices. source
  • Across multiple studies greater tillage intensity tends to reduce ground beetle abundance, species richness and diversity. source
5. Pathogens and parasites moving out of managed bee coloniesHelpful

Pathogens sit third in the ranked drivers of insect decline, with introduced species, behind habitat loss and pollution.

Disease in bees is mostly settled by beekeepers rather than by boardrooms, so a shareholder vote helps here without deciding anything. RNA viruses and the parasitic mites that carry them play a primary role in honey bee colony losses, and the colonies concerned are kept by beekeeping businesses, almost all of them private, working under contract to growers. The one place a vote does bite is where this obstacle overlaps the second one: in the literature on wild bees the effects of pesticides most likely override the effects of pathogens, so a company that reduces pesticide use in its supply chain reduces the stress that makes infection lethal. That is a real contribution and it is not the critical path, which is what this rating says.

Confirmed for this obstacle (2)
  • RNA viruses together with the parasitic mites that carry them play a primary role in honey bee colony losses. source
  • In the literature on wild bees the effects of pesticides most likely override the effects of pathogens. source
6. Invasive alien speciesHelpful

Introduced species are ranked third among the drivers of insect decline, alongside pathogens, and a global meta-analysis puts the average effect at a 31 percent reduction in abundance.

Keeping an invader out is a power of government, and no company holds it, so the vote helps at the edges here rather than deciding the outcome. A global meta-analysis of 318 effect sizes finds invasive alien species reduce insect abundance by 31 percent and species richness by 26 percent, with wide variation between orders. The instruments that answer that are quarantine, inspection at the border and eradication once an invader is established, all of them held by agencies rather than by firms. Companies are in the chain, since the trade that carries an invader is carried, warehoused and sold by them, and a retailer that stops selling a plant stops one pathway. No document read here traces a share of insect loss to invasive species introduced through a named listed company's trade, so this obstacle is rated on the argument and on the harm rather than on a corporate route anyone has documented.

Confirmed for this obstacle (2)
  • A global meta-analysis finds invasive alien species reduce insect abundance by 31 percent and species richness by 26 percent, with impacts that vary widely across taxa. source
  • The estimate of invasive alien species impact on insects rests on a global meta-analysis of 318 effect sizes across 52 studies covering four insect orders. source
7. Climate change interacting with intensive land useNecessary

Climate change ranks fourth among the drivers of insect decline on its own, and first in importance where it interacts with intensive farming: the combination is associated with reductions of almost half in insect abundance.

Warming does its worst damage to insects where the land is already farmed hard, and both halves of that combination run through companies. The interaction of historical warming with intensive agricultural land use is associated with reductions of almost 50 percent in abundance and 27 percent in the number of species, against assemblages in less disturbed habitat. The emissions side is reached by shareholders at energy, utility, transport and food companies, and the land use side by the same buyers named under the first two obstacles, which means a vote reaches both levers. It does not reach the whole: global temperature is set by the sum of everybody's emissions and governed by treaty and national policy, so corporate conduct is a condition of the outcome and not the entirety of it.

Confirmed for this obstacle (2)
  • The interaction of historical climate warming with intensive agricultural land use is associated with reductions of almost 50 percent in insect abundance and 27 percent in the number of species. source
  • The spread and intensification of agriculture over the past half century is directly related to the documented losses of insect biomass and diversity, and crops occupy about 11 percent of the world's land surface with grazing on a further 30 percent. source
8. Artificial light at nightHelpful

Environmental pollution is named by IPBES among the direct drivers, and a matched-pairs field study puts the effect of street lighting on moth caterpillar abundance at a 47 percent reduction in hedgerows.

Street lights are bought by councils, not by shareholders, so this is a place where the vote contributes without settling anything. A matched-pairs study found street lighting reduced moth caterpillar abundance by 47 percent in hedgerows and 33 percent in grass margins compared with unlit sites, and the harm was worse under white LED lamps than under the yellow sodium ones they replaced. That finding points at the specification of a lamp and at the choice of when to switch it off, decisions made by municipalities, highway authorities and households for most of the lighting there is. Listed companies make the lamps and light their own car parks, depots and signage, and those are choices owners can direct. They are a minority of the lighting, which is why this is rated as a help rather than a lever.

Confirmed for this obstacle (2)
  • Street lighting reduced moth caterpillar abundance by 47 percent in hedgerows and 33 percent in grass margins compared with unlit sites. source
  • The harm from street lighting was more pronounced under white LED lamps than under conventional yellow sodium lamps. source

What owners can do

  • Vote alongside As You Sow, Trillium Asset Management and Mercy Investment Services when a pesticide disclosure proposal reaches the ballot at a food manufacturer, a processor or a grocer. Six have been filed since 2018 and none has yet carried.
  • Ask the same question at the companies that make the pesticides rather than only at the companies that buy them. Corteva is listed on the New York Stock Exchange and its 2026 annual meeting carried no shareholder proposal, and the pressure on Bayer has so far arrived as an open letter to its shareholders rather than as a resolution.
  • Read a company's answer as well as its vote. The proposals at Kroger in 2022 and at Target in 2024 were withdrawn after the companies made commitments, which is an outcome no vote count records.
  • Where a company belongs to CropLife Europe, Euroseeds or a comparable association, ask what the association spent and on which measure, and ask the company to say whether that spending matched its own stated position.

Where this sits on our maps

Organizations to know

  • As You Sow (shareholder advocacy on record) Filed the pesticide and pollinator proposals at General Mills in 2018 and at Archer-Daniels-Midland in 2022, and solicited support for the Kellanova proposal in 2024.☆ Follow
  • Trillium Asset Management (shareholder advocacy on record) Lead filer of the 2026 Target proposal on pesticides in private label brands, and the filer named on pollinator solicitations at PepsiCo and Lamb Weston.☆ Follow
  • Mercy Investment Services (shareholder advocacy on record) Led the 2022 Kroger and 2024 Target proposals, both withdrawn after company commitments, and co-filed at Kellanova and Target.☆ Follow
  • The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation (shareholder advocacy on record) An international nonprofit working on invertebrate conservation, named by General Mills as a partner in its integrated pest management work.
  • Corporate Europe Observatory (shareholder advocacy on record) Documented the lobbying campaign against the European Union's pesticide reduction regulation and signed the open letter to Bayer's shareholders.
  • ShareAction (shareholder advocacy on record) Argues that investors can press the pesticide industry to change and help reverse the decline of pollinators.☆ Follow
  • General Mills (publicly listed) Its shareholders voted 31.3 percent for a pesticide and pollinator disclosure report in 2018.☆ Follow
  • Archer-Daniels-Midland (publicly listed) Its stockholders voted 33.7 percent for a report on pesticide use in supply chains in 2022.
  • Kellanova (publicly listed) Its shareowners voted 21.6 percent for a report on pesticide risk in its supply chain in 2024.
  • Target (publicly listed) Withdrew a proposal in 2024 after giving commitments and put a second to a vote in 2026, where it drew 17.2 percent.☆ Follow
  • Kroger (publicly listed) Gave commitments that withdrew the 2022 proposal and ended sourcing of neonicotinoid treated live plants by 2020.☆ Follow
  • Corteva (publicly listed) A listed pesticide and seed maker named in the lobbying group, with no shareholder proposal on its 2026 ballot.☆ Follow

Sources

  1. Annex II to decision IPBES-4/1
  2. Worldwide decline of the entomofauna_ A review of its drivers (Francisco Sánchez-Bayo)
  3. Agricultural intensification and climate change are rapidly decreasing insect biodiversity
  4. Agriculture and climate change are reshaping insect biodiversity worldwide | Nature
  5. Do pesticide and pathogen interactions drive wild bee declines?
  6. GENERAL MILLS INC (GIS) (CIK 0000040704) 8-K 2018-09-27 (U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission)
  7. ARCHER-DANIELS-MIDLAND CO (ADM) (CIK 0000007084) 8-K 2022-05-06 (U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission)
  8. KELLANOVA (K) (CIK 0000055067) 8-K 2024-05-01 (U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission)
  9. TARGET CORP (TGT) (CIK 0000027419) 8-K 2026-06-12 (U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission)
  10. Ta511262px14a6g.htm
  11. EDGAR full-text search: "pollinator" in notices of exempt solicitation (PX14A6G), 2015 to 2026 (U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission)
  12. E48220px14a6g.htm
  13. KELLANOVA (K) PX14A6G 2024-03-12, As You Sow notice of exempt solicitation (U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission)
  14. One-Third of ADM Shareholders Support Resolution on Pesticide Disclosures — As You Sow
  15. General Mills Shareholders Support Pesticide Disclosure ...
  16. DEFA14A
  17. 2022 Kroger Pesticide Propsal | Resources
  18. Target – Pesticide Disclosure (2024)
  19. Measuring Pesticide Use in Agricultural Supply Chains at TARGET CORPORATION | PRI
  20. Disclose Risks of Pesticide Use in Agricultural Supply Chains at KELLOGG COMPANY | PRI
  21. How the pesticide lobby is sabotaging the EU pesticide reduction law (SUR) | Corporate Europe Observatory
  22. The two-year lobbying campaign to sabotage pesticide-reduction | Corporate Europe Observatory
  23. Sustainable Use of Pesticides (European Commission, Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety)
  24. 25 APRIL 2025
  25. Corteva, Inc. (CTVA) (CIK 0001755672) 8-K 2026-05-01 (U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission)
  26. Tillage effects on ground beetles in temperate climates: a review
  27. Deadly triangle: honey bees, mites, and viruses (Zachary S. Lamas)
  28. Meta-analysis reveals negative but highly variable impacts of invasive alien species across terrestrial insect orders (Grace L. V. Skinner, Rob Cooke, Helen E. Roy, Nick J. B. Isaac, Charlotte L. Outhwaite, James G. Rodger, et al.)
  29. Street lighting has detrimental impacts on local insect populations
  30. Report on Pesticide Management | PRI
  31. The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation
  32. Home | Mercy Investment Services
  33. Trillium Asset Management | Active Portfolios, Global Impact
  34. ShareAction | A Growing Problem: Why investors must engage with the…
  35. The Coming Wave of “Natural Capital” and Biodiversity Shareholder Activism and Stewardship Pressure on Boards
  36. EDGAR full-text search: "neonicotinoid" in PX14A6G and DEF 14A filings, 2015 to 2026 (U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission)
  37. EDGAR full-text search: "pesticide use in its supply chain" in PX14A6G and DEF 14A filings, 2015 to 2026 (U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission)

About this report

The rating answers two questions: how far the outcome depends on companies changing what they make, how they make it and what they sell, and how far it depends on companies dropping their political influence against it. The higher answer sets the rating: Independent, Helpful, Necessary or Pivotal.

This is the deep report. A frontier model researched it against documents captured as it read them, and every fact it recorded carries an excerpt from one of those documents. Each excerpt was matched to its document twice: on the machine that did the work, and again here. The ratings are analytical judgments under our method, not findings of any organization named here.

63 claims were checked against the document each cites: 63 held and 0 did not.

What we read. 37 documents were held for this report and every quotation was checked against them.

Every claim, and what became of it (63)
  • Confirmed · IPBES names land use change, intensive agricultural management and pesticide use, environmental pollution, invasive alien species, pathogens and climate change as the direct drivers threatening pollin
  • Confirmed · A review of the worldwide decline of insects ranks the drivers in order of importance as habitat loss and conversion to intensive agriculture and urbanisation, then pollution mainly by synthetic pesti
  • Confirmed · The spread and intensification of agriculture over the past half century is directly related to the documented losses of insect biomass and diversity, and crops occupy about 11 percent of the world's
  • Confirmed · Agricultural intensification is identified as the main driver of population declines in insects and in other taxa that depend on them.
  • Confirmed · The practices that make up industrialised agriculture, monoculture, rising pesticide and fertiliser application and the removal of hedgerows and other habitat fragments, are the ones destructive to in
  • Confirmed · Where low-intensity farmland keeps 75 percent natural habitat cover nearby, insect abundance and richness fall by 7 and 5 percent, against 63 and 61 percent where only 25 percent cover remains.
  • Confirmed · The interaction of historical climate warming with intensive agricultural land use is associated with reductions of almost 50 percent in insect abundance and 27 percent in the number of species.
  • Confirmed · In the literature on wild bees the effects of pesticides most likely override the effects of pathogens.
  • Confirmed · General Mills shareholders voted on a proposal for a report on pesticide use in the company's supply chain and its impacts on pollinators at the 2018 annual meeting, and it was supported by 31.3 perce
  • Confirmed · At Archer-Daniels-Midland's 2022 annual meeting a stockholder proposal for a report on pesticide use in supply chains drew 146,006,556 votes for and 287,049,583 against.
  • Confirmed · At Kellanova's 2024 annual meeting a shareowner proposal asking the company to report on the risks associated with pesticide use in its supply chain drew 60,266,751 votes for and 219,076,682 against.
  • Confirmed · At Target's 2026 annual meeting a shareholder proposal asking for a report on the presence of pesticides in Target's private label brands drew 56,984,003 votes for and 275,003,485 against.
  • Confirmed · Measured against votes cast, the Target pesticide proposal received 17.2 percent support in 2026.
  • Confirmed · The 2026 Target pesticide proposal was filed by Trillium Asset Management with the Adrian Dominican Sisters Portfolio Advisory Board, Bon Secours Mercy Health, CommonSpirit Health, the Congregation of
  • Confirmed · EDGAR's full-text search records As You Sow beside General Mills on the 2018 notice of exempt solicitation for the pesticide and pollinator proposal.
  • Confirmed · As You Sow filed a notice of exempt solicitation with the SEC urging Archer-Daniels-Midland shareholders to vote for the pesticide disclosure proposal at the 2022 annual meeting.
  • Confirmed · As You Sow filed a notice of exempt solicitation with the SEC urging Kellanova shareowners to vote for the pesticide risk proposal at the 2024 annual meeting.
  • Confirmed · As You Sow says it filed the Archer-Daniels-Midland resolution asking the company to report how it measures pesticide use and risk in its agricultural supply chains.
  • Confirmed · The General Mills resolution asked the company to gather and disclose supplier level data on pesticide use so investors could understand the supply chain's impact on pollinators.
  • Confirmed · General Mills told shareholders it had worked with the Xerces Society, Iowa State University and the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service on a project to improve integrated pest management for
  • Confirmed · Walmart has committed to source all its fresh produce and floral from suppliers using third party verified integrated pest management by 2025 and asks those suppliers to report pesticide application a
  • Confirmed · Kroger met a goal of ending the sourcing of outdoor live plants treated with neonicotinoid pesticides for its stores and garden centres by 2020.
  • Confirmed · The 2022 Kroger pesticide proposal was led by Mercy Investment Services and was withdrawn in response to corporate commitments.
  • Confirmed · The 2024 Target pesticide proposal was withdrawn after the company committed to engage external expert organizations on measuring and reducing pesticide use.
  • Confirmed · Mercy Investment Services led the 2024 Target pesticide proposal, with the Adrian Dominican Sisters and the Benedictine Sisters of Mount St. Scholastica as co-filers.
  • Confirmed · Mercy Investment Services is recorded as a co-filer of the Kellanova pesticide proposal voted at the April 2024 annual meeting.
  • Confirmed · The core group lobbying against the EU pesticide reduction law declared 15 million euros of annual lobby spending and consists of Bayer, BASF, Syngenta and Corteva together with their associations Cro
  • Confirmed · Corporate Europe Observatory documents Bayer, BASF and their lobby groups working to stall, undermine and derail Green Deal projects from the moment they were proposed.
  • Confirmed · The industry campaign caused a six-month delay in the pesticide reduction negotiations as the Council required further studies.
  • Confirmed · The European Commission withdrew its proposal for the Sustainable Use of Plant Protection Products Regulation on 27 March 2024.
  • Confirmed · A European Citizens' Initiative calling for ambitious pesticide reduction and support for farmers drew 1.1 million signatures.
  • Confirmed · Civil society organisations wrote to Bayer's shareholders before the company's 2025 annual general meeting about its lobbying activities.
  • Confirmed · Bayer's own figures put its United States lobbying spending in 2023 at 18 million dollars.
  • Confirmed · Bayer, BASF, Corteva and Syngenta control over 65 percent of global trade in pesticides and at least half of the world's seed trade.
  • Confirmed · Corteva's 2026 annual meeting put only board elections, executive pay, the frequency of the pay vote and the ratification of the auditor to a vote, and carried no shareholder proposal.
  • Confirmed · Corteva's common stock is registered on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol CTVA.
  • Confirmed · Ground beetles have declined markedly and continuously in Europe over recent decades and many species of the family are threatened by intensive agricultural practices.
  • Confirmed · Across multiple studies greater tillage intensity tends to reduce ground beetle abundance, species richness and diversity.
  • Confirmed · RNA viruses together with the parasitic mites that carry them play a primary role in honey bee colony losses.
  • Confirmed · A global meta-analysis finds invasive alien species reduce insect abundance by 31 percent and species richness by 26 percent, with impacts that vary widely across taxa.
  • Confirmed · Street lighting reduced moth caterpillar abundance by 47 percent in hedgerows and 33 percent in grass margins compared with unlit sites.
  • Confirmed · The harm from street lighting was more pronounced under white LED lamps than under conventional yellow sodium lamps.
  • Confirmed · The PRI resolution database records Trillium Asset Management as lead filer and Mercy Investment Services as co-filer of the 2026 Target pesticide proposal.
  • Confirmed · The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation is an international nonprofit that works on the conservation of invertebrates and their habitats.
  • Confirmed · Mercy Investment Services is the investing ministry of the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas and uses socially responsible investing to press for systemic change.
  • Confirmed · Trillium Asset Management describes active ownership and shareholder advocacy as central to how it invests.
  • Confirmed · ShareAction argues that investors can push the pesticide industry to change and help reverse the decline of pollinators and other species.
  • Confirmed · Institutional investors are forming coalitions and pressing public companies on biodiversity, with natural capital depletion estimated to cut global GDP by 2.7 trillion dollars a year by 2030.
  • Confirmed · Farmland is managed to specifications the buyer sets, so what grows in a supply chain's fields, and what does not, is a decision the crop's purchaser shares with the farmer.
  • Confirmed · A pesticide is made by one company and required, tolerated or refused by another, so the chain from a boardroom to a field is short and both ends of it are held by companies with shareholders.
  • Confirmed · Where a measure with documented public support fails after a named corporate campaign against it, the lobbying is the obstacle rather than one pressure among several.
  • Confirmed · Households and municipalities own most outdoor lighting decisions, so a shareholder vote reaches the manufacturers and the commercial premises but not the street.
  • Confirmed · Quarantine and eradication are powers of government, and no company can exercise them, though the trade that carries an invader is carried by companies.
  • Confirmed · Managed bee colonies are kept by beekeepers, almost all of them private businesses, and the disease that moves from those colonies into wild populations is not something a vote at a listed company set
  • Confirmed · Tillage is a farm decision, and a buyer that specifies how its crop is grown is specifying how often the soil is turned.
  • Confirmed · Global temperature is set by the total of emissions rather than by any one company's, so corporate conduct has to change and so does the policy that governs everybody else's.
  • Confirmed · Six thousand scientists publicly supported the European Union's pesticide reduction law and the Nature Restoration Law as essential to long term food security.
  • Confirmed · The estimate of invasive alien species impact on insects rests on a global meta-analysis of 318 effect sizes across 52 studies covering four insect orders.
  • Confirmed · A search of the SEC's full-text index for pollinator in notices of exempt solicitation between 2015 and 2026 returns thirteen filings, the first of them at PepsiCo with Trillium Asset Management.
  • Confirmed · A search of the SEC's full-text index for neonicotinoid in notices of exempt solicitation and proxy statements between 2015 and 2026 returns ten filings, none of them at a pesticide manufacturer.
  • Confirmed · A search of the SEC's full-text index for the phrase pesticide use in its supply chain between 2015 and 2026 returns four filings, at Kellanova, Kraft Heinz and General Mills.
  • Confirmed · Coordination gegen BAYER-Gefahren and Corporate Europe Observatory are among the European organisations that signed the open letter to Bayer's shareholders.
  • Confirmed · The signatories asked Bayer's shareholders to demand that the company stop promoting pesticide makers' legal immunity bills in the United States and refrain from further lobbying damaging to the publi

First drafted September 23, 2026, reviewed and republished September 23, 2026. Scoring method revision 1.4.

Which passes have run, and what ran them

The passes can run on different models, so each one records its own. Where a model was asked for by a name that moves, the exact build that answered is shown.

  • The deep run · September 23, 2026 · Read 9 documents and wrote 63 claims, each with an excerpt from one of them. The run's own verifier repaired 0 and dropped 0 over 1 pass.local runner · claude-opus-5

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