pesticides and EU regulations

for a bit of inspiration in the cold dark winter, look at how one of my long time links over there on the left has been doing recently:

georgina downs

and see her site here

This is the first of two articles on pesticides (where I started on this blog waay back)

(I'll add more links regarding the research outlined towards the end of the article v. soon)

The regulation of pesticides are in the news at the moment. The EU is considering changing from what is called a risk to a hazard based system of approval for pesticides. (for a good sum, see here)

Because the food they eat is the end point of farming, it is worth considering what the consumer thinks.

A 2006 Eurobarometer survey found that concern about pesticides ranked highest of all food concerns amongst consumers and citizens � even higher than bird flu.

Remember bird flu? While it hasn�t gone away, it was front page news in 2005 and 2006. For pesticides to rank slightly higher as a concern among consumers, despite no high profile global pandemic moment, speaks volumes about what the consumer really wants.

The same Eurobarometer survey found that consumer groups (32%), physicians or doctors (also 32%) and scientists (30%) are considered as the most trusted information sources regarding serious food risks.

Public authorities (22%) and the media (17%) were next, while food manufacturers (6%), farmers (6%) and supermarkets or shops (3%) scored worst in the consumer�s opinion, when it comes to telling the truth about food.

Unless there is a seismic, high-profile revelation of thalidomide
proportions, the agri-food industry will always default towards business
as usual. Change involves the unknown and thus financial risk.

Our own Department of Agriculture fears �significant agronomic and economic damage� including likely �crop yield reductions� due to the currently proposed changes to pesticide regulations in the EU. It claims that the �the scientific principle of risk assessment (which takes �hazard� and �exposure� into account) is ignored in favour of hazard-based �cut-off
criteria�� in the proposed changes.

But in reality, pesticide exposure happens. Since the 1980s, traces of pesticides have been discovered in the fatty tissue of polar bears, which live far from the source of possible exposure.

And Europe accounts for about a quarter of the world�s consumption of pesticides, despite having just 4% of the world�s agricultural land.

In 2007, Dr Roberto Bertollini, director of the World Health Organisation�s Special Programme on Health and the Environment blamed pesticide residues in fruit and vegetables for contributing to a rising rate of mental and behavioural disorders, especially in children. And the French Institute of Public Health, Epidemiology and Development said farmers and gardeners using pesticides were more likely to suffer brain tumours.

More and more research is suggesting that the developing foetus, children, farm workers and the elderly are vulnerable.

Pesticide exposure in pregnant women has been linked to obesity in their children. According to a study by Frederick vom Saal, professor of biological sciences at the University of Missouri-Colombia: �Certain environmental substances called endocrine-disrupting chemicals can change the functioning of a foetus�s genes, altering a baby�s metabolic system and predisposing him or her to obesity. This individual could eat the same thing and exercise the same amount as someone with a normal metabolic system, but he or she would become obese, while the other person remained thin. This is a serious problem because obesity puts
people at risk for other problems, including cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and hypertension.�

Pesticides are one of the main sources of these endocrine disruptors. Professor vom Saal�s study tested for socio-economic and cultural variables in the mothers, to eliminate these possibilities (such as the mother�s smoking, education, class, weight etc).

Research findings also suggests that women with breast cancer are five to nine times more likely to have pesticide residues in the body (2003); that pesticides have been linked to cancer in farm labourers (2000, 2003); and that high exposure to pesticides increased the risk of
Parkinson�s disease by 41% (2007).

The highest ever levels of pesticide residues were recorded in fruit, vegetables and cereals in the EU recently, with 5% of these above legal limits.

Rather than extreme claims of food price increases, which the consumer will not believe anyway, perhaps those representing farmers� interests should look to the opportunities for more integrated and holistic pest controlling techniques.

Which is what we will do here next when we talk to Dr Charles Merfield of UCD.