Canada's health agency on Wednesday announced restrictions on the use of popular pesticide imidacloprid, but stopped short of banning this and two others shown to harm insects and birds.

Imidacloprid belongs to a class of chemicals called neonicotinoids that are blamed for the collapse of bee colonies worldwide and suspected of disrupting memory and flight abilities of insects and birds.

"Health Canada has concluded that a complete ban on neonicotinoid pesticides is not warranted," Scott Kirby, head of the agency's pesticides management section, told a media briefing.

A re-evaluation of scientific data, he said, had found "some uses of imidacloprid do not pose a risk to human health or the environment, while other uses do pose risks of concern."

The restrictions apply mostly to seeds for vegetable and tobacco crops as well as turf coated with the pesticide, which when planted outdoors may be eaten by birds.

They follow similar measures announced in March for clothianidin and thiamethoxam, including a cap on application rates and the number of applications, as well as spray buffer zones.

Neonicotinoids have been used for nearly three decades on tens of millions of acres of Canadian farmland.

They were found recently to be accumulating in ponds, creeks and other bodies of water near agricultural lands, killing aquatic insects.

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