EU-banned pesticides found in rice, tea and spices (opens in new tab)

I know someone close who grows oranges in Spain. He has to go through hell, had to rework multiple times the fields so that they pass the strict Spanish regulation for organic produce. They get evaluated not only on the final product being pesticide free, but also on the full process being compliant, with heavy fines for non compliance.

This is fine-ish, except that the imported oranges get checked only seldomly (if that) and are given a lot of leeway, making it very hard to compete if you grow them locally. Last couple of years saw some profit for growing them locally, but it's been times where there was literally no profit at all for 5+ years.

Funny story: he requested a permit to build a well, and ofc it takes forever so he just waited. After 4-5 years waiting, having even forgotten about it, someone called him: "we're here to inspect the well". What well? You haven't given me permission yet. "yes, we know, but people build them anyway before getting permission so we thought you'd do the same".

Unfortunately this is an all too common pattern in the history of pesticides. In 1979 DBCP was banned in the US after factory workers became sterile. Dow Chemical happily shipped tons of it to be sprayed directly on banana workers in banana republics[0] by Dole/Chiquita/Del Monte. To this day Costa Rica, Honduras, Guatemala, Panama, and Nicaragua have some of the highest rates of infertility, birth defects, and chronic illnesses in the world

This was just after the Gros Michel had gone basically extinct because of monocropping. The banana companies hired scientists to figure out what to do that almost universally recommended diversifying the crop. But they calculated that it'd actually be cheaper to just double down on pesticide application and start again with another monocrop.

There's an incredible documentary about the banana industry history (and practices that continue to this day like banana companies paying gangs to assassinate local labor leaders) called Bananaland: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoRmtQht8-E

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_republic

> EU countries export these banned pesticides to third countries

Shouldn't EU ban ideally exports of good that it bans internally?

Object on "blame"--it is actually only saying that this scenario is possible, it is not establishing that it actually is the cause.

It also shifts a lot of the real exposure onto farm workers and local environments outside the EU, while EU firms still capture the upside

You cannot blame like this the administration when you make any regulatory mistake such as not knowing a rule or not being able to enforce it in practice.

It is amazing that we have regulations for everything and that when they cannot enforce it, they blame someone else.

Different way of dealing with people depending on who, not what.

That is one reason why I, at least try to, check the label and avoid products with non-EU ingredients.

Also one of my worries with the mercusour trade deal. And any deal that involves meat imports from the US, with specific laxer regulation requirements (at least what Trump would like).

I checked the list of pesticides in the article, and almost all of them were banned because of the effect on pollinators, not because of human health.

So using these pesticides only on products for export makes utterly no sense!

It also makes sense for anything coming out of third world countries, pesticides kill and harm lots of farmers there. https://www.publiceye.ch/en/topics/pesticides/pesticide-gian...

People still use tea bags even though they're a top source of microplastics.

Organic is just green washing, it doesn’t mean no chemicals. Plenty of organic products contain toxic chemicals and heavy metals. Organic oats have been found to contain glyphosate. Organic spices have been found to contain heavy metals.

I've been buying spices from Diaspora, Burlap & Barrel, Curio - not cheap but I definitely feel some validated after eyeing the report. The potency is top notch too. Tea I buy loose leaf from a trusted purveyor. Among yerba mate brands there are a few organic brands to choose from.

Just buy from places where these laws are in effect instead of imports from other countries where they legally use these pesticides.

Yes and no!

In the UK, tea means tea bags and that normally means tea bags made of a plastic/paper mix. If I remember, the bag material is made and then they heat it up to get the plastic out, revealing the holes, needed for the bag.

Of late there has been criticism of microplastics in tea bags, and the posh organic bags have fared quite badly. Fancy sachets are not necessarily it.

As for chemicals, not one farmer spends any money than what is the bare minimum, no matter what they do. They might have to put all kinds of toxic chemicals on crops but they are not going to waste money over-doing it, because they are tight with the money, at all times, under all circumstances.

So the question has to be asked, is it worth worrying about the worrying levels of chemicals in tea when there are worrying levels of microplastics that the body really cannot get rid of with some liver-fu?

But, are there more toxins? The working class British way to have tea is with milk and two sugars. The milk is designed for baby cows, not grown men, they should be 'weaned off' because there are all kinds of things in dairy that might not be toxins, but could be considered to be. For example the cholesterol and saturated fat. Next the sugar, which is fine in moderation, so long as you don't care for your teeth, and, when combined with saturated fat, can contribute to type two diabetes.

Clearly opinions vary regarding the health aspects of milk and sugar in tea, my grandmother almost made it to a century, consuming plenty. However, you can reduce the toxic load from drinking tea by getting rid of the microplastics by using plant-based teabags (even LIDL have them), not having milk and sugar in the tea and, only then, getting concerned about buying organic.

Organic does not mean no nasty chemicals, it means no synthetic nasty chemicals. However, it is still a good nice-to-have, but, realistically, if you want to cut your exposure to toxins, there are these other huge areas that are under our control, but those things are going to be controversial lifestyle choices. Just not using cars 'could' reduce your toxic load far more than any organic teabag.

It's one of the richest food cultures in the world. If you've never tried sichuan peppercorn on mapo tofu, or pickled mustard greens on noodle dishes, I think you're in for a real treat.

These do involve foods from China though..

What's that going to help you with?

Ever been to Innisfail? Have you seen them fly small Cessna's over the banana fields and absolutely drench them with pesticides?

They do this with all the crop fields in Aus.

Does that meaningfully restrict which foods / ingredients you can get?

In Australia, tea and spices are imported predominantly from Asian countries.

They don't "poison the people" unless the pesticides are found in a toxic dose (they are not).

Of course, the legal limits are purposefully designed to be well below the LOAEL, and those companies that were found to contain levels above them should face consequences. But to claim they "poison the people" isn't true.

Wasn't the EU fresh from a scandal that they voted all sorts of laws, sued lots of EU companies, and then allowed Chinese companies to import lots of stuff that obviously violated all those laws for 20+ years?

From safety regulations to baby toys with lead paint.

The EU will probably do nothing again.

There's always a tradeoff between eating crops that will make you sick and kill you when you are 60 vs not eating enough nutritious food that will kill you when you are 40.

+1

The downvotes aren't surprising, people who have spent enough time on this orange site tend to lose the plot

There is some weird obsession on the internet about proving the U.S. is the worst at everything.

Believe me, the majority of “The rest of the world” does not protect its citizens from harmful food contamination.

This article is about the EU food supply, and does not appear to attribute the contaminants to US exports. Why are you bringing American cultivation practices into this?

If anything, this OP demonstrates that the EU regulations are futile (though that may be an overstatement).

I agree the situation is shitty in the US, but what does that have to do with pesticides banned in the EU? It seems entirely superfluous to this to this story.

Cumin always shows up on these lists, whether it's with heavy metals or something else. It's to the point where I've more or less just stopped cooking with it because I don't trust it to be safe.

It's strange to me that this isn't the emphasis of the article.

I assume the MRL the lowest amount which could possibly cause harm? If so then why does it matter for the rest of the products where the levels are below that?

It could be for potential environmental harm, but then the fact that these are being exported at all should tell you that they're being used, you don't have to test consumer goods.

Their recommendations include this:

>2. Automatically lower all maximum residue levels (MRLs) of non-approved pesticides to the limit of detection to prevent these substances from making their way back onto European plates via a dangerous ‘boomerang effect

But is this scientifically supported?

The worrying part is not just that banned substances show up at trace levels, but that a non-trivial number of products were apparently over the legal limit

If it is not allowed to be used in the EU, it shouldn't be allowed to export it.

> Although these chemicals are not allowed on the EU market, they can still be exported from European Member States to third countries. From there, they can return to Europe as residues in imported food — a “toxic pesticides boomerang” that puts consumers at risk.

Surely that depends on the reason for the ban? Say it is banned in the EU because of concerns about secondary environmental impact, a different country with a different ecology could reasonably decide to keep using it.

Canadian lentils are sprinkled in glyphosate to kill them so they can be harvested (as the climate there doesn’t allow for this to occur naturally). They’re then harvested and shipped back to the EU where such a practice is forbidden. But it happened outside of the EU so it’s magically safe.

Are these EU farmers that are being turned away growing tea and spices?

But we absolutely need to shut down our farms to lower emissions so that we appear "green". It's totally worth to become food dependent on questionable countries for that.

In the end, it is up to the consumer.

Local variants exist. But supermarkets are convenient and cheap.

I don't think you can conclude much from a sample size of 1.

My country at least (and probably yours too) is producing more organic products than ever before. People are also consuming organic products more than before.

Personally working at a bio farm and while it is more work than just spraying some chemical wholesale, I think it's not necessarily much harder than the past (not sure though). What I do know is that not being bio is much easier, that's all.

You’re not wrong. Where I am you need to cover everything with a net to even give it a chance at getting to the ripe stage otherwise 80% of it is somehow damaged by insects and disease. I’ve only been growing things for a few years but I just assumed that’s how growing things naturally always was. Is that genuinely not true?

Probably the law says "they cannot be used in the EU" and that's it. If the law would ban the production of said pesticides it would be a completely different story.

Isn't that the only way they can profit?

I too believed Patrick Moore representing Monstanto when he said 'Round up' was safe to drink.

No we don’t. And the greatest hazard is the soul crushing disappointment that is a Dutch tomato.

> that 14 out of 64 samples had levels above the legally allowed limit (MRL), of which 12 pesticides that are not approved in the EU (page 12 of report).

Large amounts of pesticides which are banned from use in EU and/or US, are produced there then exported.

Afaik there's some EU work towards closing this loophole. But nothing major that made it into legislation (so far). No doubt Monsanto, Bayer & co have lobbyists + lawyers working to slow down or prevent that.