Читать книгу The Savvy Shopper - Rose Prince - Страница 10

For descriptive ease, I have used the word pesticide in this book as a cover-all term for agricultural chemicals, which include weed killers (herbicides) and fungicides.

In September 2004 the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution (RCEP) issued a serious warning about the effects of pesticides and our government’s failure to tackle the issue. The RCEP report covered health risks to bystanders and residents exposed to the use of pesticides on land near their homes. Its recommendations included a re-think of how risk itself is measured, making it clear that current risk assessment is inadequate. The lobby against pesticides is understandably elated at the report, but its concerns about pesticides are much wider. It alludes to the dangers farmers all over the world face when handling pesticides, the pollution of the environment, depletion of the ozone layer and the long-term effects of hormone- and endocrine-disrupting chemicals on human and animal reproductive systems.

In 2005 agricultural chemical watchdog, the Pesticides Action Network UK (PAN UK), published the List of Lists, detailing all the hundreds of dangerous pesticides in use around the world and how they can affect us. This list, which is too long to be included here, can be obtained from PAN UK, www.pan-uk.org. Thanks to the campaigns of environmental organisations including PAN UK, various worldwide conventions on pesticide use have ruled that many on the list (including the better-known poisons, DDT and lindane) can now be used only with prior consent between the importing/exporting countries. However, three on the list, namely aldicarb, DBCP and paraquat are not yet internationally regulated.

In the UK the government-backed Pesticide Residues Committee tests samples of food from various groups four times a year, and publishes the findings on the internet. For each pesticide it has established a Maximum Residue Level (MRL) to enable it to measure the safe use of pesticides. Council-funded local trading standards offices also test for pesticides. Anti-pesticide voices claim that MRLs are not low enough and pesticide residues are found on far too many everyday fruits and vegetables. They also say that the ‘cocktail effect’ of multiple residues poses the real danger.

The Soil Association, which operates the most stringent standards in the UK organic farming sector, permits its members in special cases to use six agricultural chemicals on crops: copper, sulphur, rotenone, soft soap, paraffin oil and potassium permanganate. They may use pyrethroids in insect traps. Those that defend the use of pesticides as a whole will always leap on this fact when attacking organic standards to weaken the position of the organic sector. It is a slim argument, taking into account the 450 or more chemicals available to conventional farmers and the fact that each individual organic farmer must go through hell and high water to get permission to use one of the six on a crop. The Soil Association argues that the pesticides they permit are either of natural origin or simple chemical compounds compared to the complex chemicals used in conventional farming.

As far as savvy shoppers should be concerned, the traceability of organic food and its comparative freedom from residues is a standard to chase. Farmers who strive to reduce pesticide use and reintroduce wildlife to farms, like those signing up for the environmentally concerned farming scheme, LEAF, should be encouraged – if not quite celebrated. But while no ideal system is in wide use, buying seasonally and locally boosts trust and is good value for money. Viewed another way, it is easier to check up on the tomato grower down the road than the one in Brazil.