Sometimes supermarket shopping in China means getting a little more than you bargained for. How about eggplant with a side of the banned pesticide methamidophos?
That"s what Greenpeace volunteers discovered earlier this year when they went undercover to test the presence of pesticides in the rice and fresh produce being sold in Lotus supermarkets across Shanghai and Wuhan. Banned pesticides were also discovered in produce from the global supermarket chain Tesco in their Beijing and Guangzhou stores, and Lianhua supermarkets (along with affiliate stores Hualian and Century Mart) across Shanghai, Wuhan and Hangzhou. One leek sample from Lianhua contained pesticide residue procymidone levels at 1.05 mg/kg. This exceeds the Chinese maximum residue level (MRL) standard of 0.02 mg/kg by 52 times, essentially making it an illegal product to sell in China.
Every year 1.7 million tons of pesticide is sprayed on the fields of China. 25% are used on vegetables, 20% are used on rice and 10% on wheat (China Yearbook of Agriculture, 2009). In some vegetable production areas farmers apply pesticide on their vegetables every second to third day throughout the entire growing season. The overwhelming majority of these farms are very small scale. It"s only recently farmers associations are enabling better and more direct access to high value market players such as retailers, giving farmers the opportunity to get a fairer price for their stock and facilitate food safety and quality control.
Supermarket giants such as Tesco should be leading the way when it comes to shifting China"s agricultural industry to an eco-agricultural one, which includes reducing the country"s heavy use of chemicals in production. And instead they, along with Lotus and Lianhua, are seriously lax in keeping to China"s current standards.
Between April and July of this year, Greenpeace sampled 50 vegetable and fruit samples and 12 rice samples from Tesco, Lotus, Lianhua and its affiliates. 35 vegetable and fruit samples contained pesticides. 23 samples contained the pesticide that EU classification lists as hormone disruptors. 19 contained pesticides the EU listed as possibly harmful to unborn babies. Some samples even contained pesticides have been banned in China for over four years.
Studies in Europe, the US and Japan have shown that long term exposure to even the slightest amount of pesticide can still harm our health, such as affecting our hormone system, harming unborn babies and possibly lead to infertility. And it"s not just the consumers who are at risk. It is the farmers, their families and the people of their community, who are in the greatest of dangers.
It"s not fair to expect the common farmer alone to end the nation"s addiction to pesticides. From production to retail, it"s a shared responsibility among producers, suppliers and retailers to ensure food safety. Corporate and social responsibility means doing more than just what the law requires. The actions of the "big three" of China’s supermarket biz have the potential to be game changers. They have the capacity to control pesticide in their products and so it"s to them that we ask: are we going to see an end to hazardous levels of pesticides in China"s food?
That"s what Greenpeace volunteers discovered earlier this year when they went undercover to test the presence of pesticides in the rice and fresh produce being sold in Lotus supermarkets across Shanghai and Wuhan. Banned pesticides were also discovered in produce from the global supermarket chain Tesco in their Beijing and Guangzhou stores, and Lianhua supermarkets (along with affiliate stores Hualian and Century Mart) across Shanghai, Wuhan and Hangzhou. One leek sample from Lianhua contained pesticide residue procymidone levels at 1.05 mg/kg. This exceeds the Chinese maximum residue level (MRL) standard of 0.02 mg/kg by 52 times, essentially making it an illegal product to sell in China.
Every year 1.7 million tons of pesticide is sprayed on the fields of China. 25% are used on vegetables, 20% are used on rice and 10% on wheat (China Yearbook of Agriculture, 2009). In some vegetable production areas farmers apply pesticide on their vegetables every second to third day throughout the entire growing season. The overwhelming majority of these farms are very small scale. It"s only recently farmers associations are enabling better and more direct access to high value market players such as retailers, giving farmers the opportunity to get a fairer price for their stock and facilitate food safety and quality control.
Supermarket giants such as Tesco should be leading the way when it comes to shifting China"s agricultural industry to an eco-agricultural one, which includes reducing the country"s heavy use of chemicals in production. And instead they, along with Lotus and Lianhua, are seriously lax in keeping to China"s current standards.
Between April and July of this year, Greenpeace sampled 50 vegetable and fruit samples and 12 rice samples from Tesco, Lotus, Lianhua and its affiliates. 35 vegetable and fruit samples contained pesticides. 23 samples contained the pesticide that EU classification lists as hormone disruptors. 19 contained pesticides the EU listed as possibly harmful to unborn babies. Some samples even contained pesticides have been banned in China for over four years.
Studies in Europe, the US and Japan have shown that long term exposure to even the slightest amount of pesticide can still harm our health, such as affecting our hormone system, harming unborn babies and possibly lead to infertility. And it"s not just the consumers who are at risk. It is the farmers, their families and the people of their community, who are in the greatest of dangers.
It"s not fair to expect the common farmer alone to end the nation"s addiction to pesticides. From production to retail, it"s a shared responsibility among producers, suppliers and retailers to ensure food safety. Corporate and social responsibility means doing more than just what the law requires. The actions of the "big three" of China’s supermarket biz have the potential to be game changers. They have the capacity to control pesticide in their products and so it"s to them that we ask: are we going to see an end to hazardous levels of pesticides in China"s food?
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