Plea to rid fruit and vegetables of toxic pesticides
Print Edition
HIGHLY-TOXIC pesticides used in food production in China are to be banned if a proposed amendment to the Food Safety Law is approved.
Despite failing to propose a complete prohibition of highly toxic pesticides, the draft amendment seeks to ban such chemicals on vegetables, fruit, tea and herbs, and replace them with safer ones.
The country will encourage and support the use of effective pesticides with low toxicity and residues, speed up a full ban on highly toxic pesticides and promote the research and application of substitutes.
The draft was submitted to the bimonthly legislative session of the National People’s Congress Standing Committee yesterday.
China still stocks certain highly toxic pesticides for emergency use. The Ministry of Agriculture has said a full ban is not realistic.
At a press conference last week, Vice Agriculture Minister Zhang Taolin said agricultural pollution was worsening in China because of the intensive use of chemicals.
Zhang urged farmers to reduce the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides by limiting waste and switching to organic alternatives.
China is the world’s biggest consumer of pesticides and chemical fertilizers, accounting for a third of the global total.
The amount used on fruits and vegetables has exceeded safety levels, Zhang said.
The excessive use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides has led to polluted water sources, contamination of soil with heavy metals and high pesticide residues on food, threatening both public health and agricultural productivity, he added.
In recent years, a series of pesticide reports have challenged the government on food safety management.
In 2013, campaign group Greenpeace found herbs purchased from traditional Chinese pharmacies contained a toxic cocktail of pesticides. Some levels were hundreds of times EU safety standards, it claimed.
Last month, 12 residents in the coastal city of Qingdao felt sick after they ate watermelons produced in the island province of Hainan.
They include five children and a 29-year-old pregnant woman. Tests showed they were poisoned by organic phosphor, a major pesticide ingredient.
All have since recovered.
On April 2, the Qingdao food and drug watchdog said the watermelons were tainted with high levels of aldicarb, an insecticide known to be one of the most toxic on the market.
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