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CHEMICAL PESTICIDES IN FOOD

Newspaper of the Earth, October 2017. Section: Opinion

(newspaper distributed free of charge to clients of health food shops)

Text: Jelmer Buijs; agricultural consultant and Henk Tennekes, toxicologist consultant

If you as a person want to understand these days what is in the food you are buying, you have almost a permanent job to do so. The labels of products in stores contain laundry lists of substances that you do not know and the things that are really important are often not mentioned. Farmers, processors and traders often do not know the exact composition of their products themselves, because they depend on suppliers and on the quality of the soil, water and air with which their produce is produced. Just think of the recent egg scandal with fipronil.

You want to know more
Consumers who want to know more about the substances that can be present in foods soon come home from a cold funfair. If you send e-mails to food producers, you can expect four types of answers:
• You will not receive a response
• They have never measured the substances you ask for and / or have never heard of the substances you request
• They measure these substances, but have never found anything. It is often the case that they use a very low measuring accuracy, because this is sufficient according to the law
• They do measure the substances, but do not find it in their interest to share the results of the measurements with consumers

Modern spraying equipment in the province of Flevoland

Recently we have e-mailed (and called) a number of companies and organizations. We asked;

1) A well-known Dutch cooperative of dairy farmers (Campina cooperative) about the presence of insecticide imidacloprid in milk.

Their answer was: the standard for milk is 0.1 milligrams per liter and we measure with an accuracy of 0.01 milligrams per liter. Nothing has ever been found with this measurement accuracy.

2) A well-known beer brand from Amsterdam (Amstel Beer) about the presence of herbicides (glyphosate) in their beer.

Their answer was: It is impossible that our beer contains glyphosate, due to hard agreements with suppliers. However, they wrote further that their beer with lemon flavor can contain pesticides from the lemons. How much did they not write to us

3) A sugar factory in Dinteloord (the Netherlands) about the possible presence of insecticides (imidacloprid) in sugar and sugar products
Their Answer was simple: They had not measured this before

4) The sugar factory Südzucker in Mannheim (Germany) about the possible presence of insecticides (imidacloprid) in sugar and in bee feed that they produce.

Their answer was: Evasive, namely that there produce meets all European standards. They did not write how much of this substance is in their products.

5) A large manufacturer of winter feed for bees (Dadant and Sons, USA) about the possible presence of insecticides in bee winter feed
Answer: not received

6) Skal biocontrol (Skal biocontrole is the organization for the supervision of organic production in the Netherlands) and NVWA (the Dutch Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority) and traders in organic food about the levels of pesticides in organic products.

Answer: Skal; Measured values of pesticides in organic food are not intended for the public. Only violations are mentioned in the annual reports. The results of residue measurements are passed on to the companies that produce these products.
Answer from NVWA; no answer yet. NVWA responds as a rule correctly but slowly.
Trade response (via Bionext); the measured levels are not shared with consumers

Evaluation of all answers

The cooperative of dairy farmers (with thousands of member-producers) answered very precisely. They measure imidacloprid insecticide in milk and comply with the legal standards, because they have never found anything. In itself that is nice, but such a maximum allowable concentration of this substance in milk would be fatal for many insects, such as bees. Could it be that this milk is healthy for us ……...?

The NVWA measured in 2016 that in 37% of the tested Dutch beer brands this herbicide (glyphosate) was present with an average content of 6.5 micrograms per liter, with the highest at one beer brand of 19.1 micrograms per liter. The NVWA informed us that they could not disclose information in which beer brands this substance was found in and in which beer brands not, because this could lead to distortions of competition (as they say). Whether the well-known Amsterdam beer brand itself has measured glyphosate remains unclear in their answer. Perhaps they measure so inaccurately that they can say that they have not found anything. The NVWA considers these levels to be fully safe, even if we also ingest this substance with other foodstuffs. But what will the standards look like in 10 years?
The fact that the Dutch sugar factory has never searched for the insecticide imidacloprid in sugar can be true, although imidacloprid has been applied for years to virtually all sugar beet in the Netherlands (and in Europe). We have been told that the factory is going to measure it from now on. Then the question is whether to measure it with the correct accuracy, otherwise it does not make sense. It is very unlikely that we as consumers (or as writers of this article) will get the results of the measurements.

The German sugar manufacturer indicated that they meet all standards. However, the standards for human nutrition are much weaker than for what is required for bees (as has been mentioned before). So it is legally possible that they produce bee winter feed from which the bees become ill.

Companies that do not give a reaction at all think this will reduce the risk of negative information. That reinforces the idea that they have something to hide.
Skal biocontrole and traders in organic products (via Bionext) answered verbally that it is not the intention that the levels of pesticides in organic foods would be known by consumers.

What can you do yourself?

By buying organically produced foods you can limit the risk for your health. However, organic farms are also subjected to certain levels of pesticides, via purchased non-organic manure, surface water, rain, and through other pathways. It is important that the standards for the use of non-organic fertilizers (by Skal biocontrol) be tightened. If it is good, organic products should have a much lower pesticide content than conventional products. However, this is difficult to check, because nobody wants to publish the measurement data for organic food in the Netherlands. Foreign research shows that organic products contain on average 4 to 5 times fewer residues of most pesticides. So there is still work to be done for the organic sector to make the Dutch measurements public and to ensure that the level of pesticides is further reduced by means of various measures. These measures may have to do with the use of manure from conventional agriculture, from compost, but also with the use of surface water for irrigation and for drinking water for livestock. As of 1 January 2018, biodynamic agriculture completely prohibits the use of conventional manure. Also until that date the rules have been stricter than with the other organic certification schemes. That is an important step in the right direction!

There are also many applications of pesticides in and around the house. Anti-flea belts for cats and dogs are notorious because they contain large amounts of insecticides, such as imidacloprid and fipronil (well-known from the eggs), like anti-bait boxes, anti-flee shampoos, anti-fly sprays and other insect repellents. If bees would ingest these substances, only 2 of those belts would be sufficient to let all bees in the Netherlands die through chronic poisoning. It is said that alternatives based on geraniol are safe for the environment, for the pets themselves and for bees.

Cats and dogs anti-flee belts contain very large quantities (more than 1 gram) of the highly controversial insecticide imidacloprid and / or other substances. There is a good destination for the belts: the collection point of chemical waste of your municipality.

Who can you believe?
Producers have a multitude of ways in which they can mislead consumers. In general, the claim that a product does not contain any pesticides at all is incorrect. With the right equipment you can find virtually every substance in every food. Moreover, many pesticides in the world are used in such quantities that they can be found almost everywhere in nature, also in the North Sea or in the polar ice. In certain cases, the differences between organic products and non-organic products may be small or absent;

· if the pesticides in products originate from applications from the distant past, eg DDT. This product will remain in the ground for at least 100 years and will be partly absorbed by plants

· if they are not used in the Netherlands, but move with the wind and rain land to our fields from abroad. This takes place everywhere, on organic and non-organic farms.

· with the purchase of non-organic fertilizers, straw, or via the small part (5%) permitted non-organic feed for animals in organic livestock farming, pesticides may end up at the organic farms

· by the use of veterinary medicines that in some occasions contain the same substances as pesticides used on crops

· if producers and / or processors of organic products do not comply with the rules, or if the rules are not right

Why does certain people say what about pesticides?
All parts of the agricultural sector that develop, research, sell and apply pesticides have an interest in telling you that they do not cause any harm and that their application would even be necessary to feed the world's population. The permitted levels of pesticides (the standards) are determined on the basis of data provided by the industry for tests on laboratory animals. In addition, research is being carried out into the effect of the substances on our ecosystem. It cannot be otherwise than that this research is very incomplete, because our ecosystem is immensely complex. The results of the ecotoxicological tests mainly provide information on the acute toxicity and in the absence of other contamination. The reality is that we use ourselves and nature as a guinea pig to observe the effect of pesticides, in addition to the tests that are done beforehand in laboratories.

Can our economy run without pesticides?
It is absolute nonsense that our economy could not run without the use of pesticides. As a rule, organic farms have hardly any problems with diseases and pests. They apply a variety of preventive and biological measures. The yield of crops is mainly determined by the skill of the grower, by the soil fertility and by the weather. It is exactly the other way around: our economy cannot keep running with the use of all those toxins. Our soils will eventually become unusable and the food will become just as bad.

What is the effect of pesticides?

Pesticides can disturb all kinds of essential life processes of unwanted plants (weeds), fungi, bacteria, insects and all sorts of micro-organisms in such a way that they die. However, the operation, spreading and possible accumulation of pesticides in nature is impossible to predict. Moreover, everything is connected with everything in nature. The worldwide use of imidacloprid has a lethal effect on many insects and other organisms and the effect increases very strongly with the elapsed time. This is related to the neurotoxicological mechanism of action of this substance, whereby the duration of exposure enhances the ultimate effect (see first publication in the bibliography). The chronic effect of 1 billionth of a gram imidacloprid is sufficient to allow a bee to die within a few days. The effect of fipronil also increases with the elapsed time, but less strongly than with imidacloprid. Fipronil is carcinogenic in animal experiments, so in 20 years we will know more about this, thanks to you and me (…....). It is known that carcinogenic substances do not have a safe lower limit with regard to concentration in foodstuffs.

Why should pesticides be avoided at all times?

Substances that have never occurred in nature do not belong in nature and not in our body, even in very small quantities. Anyone who says that this does not cause any damage, ignores the facts. We (also the scientists who claim otherwise) have no idea what we are doing in nature. It often appears that only after 20 years or more birds, butterflies or other animals have disappeared. We also need to be very careful with natural pesticides. Nicotine and pyrethrum are examples of natural insecticides, which are very toxic and not selective at all.

Do pesticides affect your health?

The levels of pesticides in the ocean water are very small (in the order of 1 gram per million cubic meters of water) and yet it has been established that they can accumulate in dangerous quantities in the fat of birds and fish that live there. Research in various countries has also shown that large quantities of toxins accumulate in human fat tissue. The aforementioned imidacloprid insecticide has shown in animal experiments that it can cause obesitas, early stages of type 2 diabetes and precancer. Is it a coincidence that these diseases are now increasing? The substance also interacts with the human brain, and the risks that this entails are concealed. There is hardly a product in the supermarket that doesn’t contain this insecticide (in very small quantities). In all products containing non-organic soya, corn, sugar, eggs and dairy products, it must be in place because it was used in the production chain. It is also used in apple orchards, on oranges and vegetables, etc.

What is the influence of pesticides on nature in the Netherlands?

There have been many observations in recent years that the number of insects is rapidly decreasing and that many birds of the farmland are rapidly disappearing. In recent years, many meadow birds in the Netherlands disappeared like snow in the sun. It is almost certain that the pesticides play a major role in this. However, little research is being done, because we are not allowed to criticize the subject of pesticides. The research is mainly at the service of the industry and not at the service of society. Concentrations of various pesticides in surface water in the Netherlands often exceed the legal standards, despite the fact that these standards are already too high.

Are there strict controls in the Netherlands?

Food samples are taken intermittently and analyzed on pesticides by the NVWA, by Skal biocontrole and by traders. However, in some cases it may take years before violations are discovered and published. To make their work more effective, these organizations try to focus on risk products. Furthermore, the NVWA and Skal biocontrol are bound by the legal MRL standards that apply in the Netherlands. These standards are in many cases highly questionable. Furthermore, many ‘purely vegetable’ preparations are offered for organic farming are not checked by Skal biocontrol, if they are on the list of permitted substances. The egg scandal has taught us that the blind faith in 'herbal' remedies (in this case for poultry mite control in chickens) should be a thing of the past.

The way out of these unnecessary problems

Thousands of (organic) farmers throughout Europe are demonstrating that they can work fine without pesticides. If we can ban all diesel engines and coal-fired electricity plants, we can also ban the use of pesticides over time and ensure that our offspring can look forward to the healthiest possible future. Better turned halfway than completely gone.

Jelmer Buijs; agricultural consultant (jelmerbuijs@gmail.com)

Henk Tennekes, toxicologist consultant (info@toxicology.nl)

Useful information:

1. http://www.disasterinthemaking.com/about_the_author.html (book by Henk Tennekes, 2010)

2. https://www.waterkwaliteitsportaal.nl/Beheer/Rapportage/Bulkdata (measurements of chemical substances in surface water in the Netherlands with measuring points)

3. http://www.ctgb.nl/ (Board for the authorization of plant protection products and biocides)

4. https://www.cbg-meb.nl/ (college for the evaluation of medicines)

5. http://www.bestrijdingsmiddelenatlas.nl/