Guest Commentary

 

The use of pesticides in Chinese agriculture continues to rise by about 3% every year. 

Currently, the country uses almost 2 million tons of pesticides in its agriculture annually.

About 70% of these pesticides wash away into the environment and end up as hazardous pollution in  water, soil, and the atmosphere. As residues, some of them find their way into the food people  eat, increasing health risks. 

Unfortunately, this situation is only the tip of the iceberg of a much bigger problem: the general failure of chemical-intensive agriculture to feed people safely, while preventing environmental degradation.

A recent report from Greenpeace summarizes the findings of an investigation looking at key actors in Chinese agriculture: local farmers, traders, and employees at processing plants. It details the results from scientific testing of 65 Chinese herbal products, including wolfberries, honeysuckle, Sanqi flowers and chrysanthemum, which were purchased from nine retail chains in nine different cities across China between August 2012 and April 2013.

Greenpeace found:

• The 65 samples tested contained 51 different kinds of pesticide residues. 

• 48 out of 65 samples tested positive for pesticide residues.

• Six residues were from pesticides that have been banned in China (phorate, carbofuran, fipronil, methamidophos, aldicarb and ethoprophos). These were found in 26 samples. The World Health Organization (WHO) has classified some of these pesticides as extremely or highly hazardous.

• On the San Qi Flower, thiophanate-methyl residue was 500 times over the European maximum residue limit (MRL). On the honeysuckle, the same residue was 100 times over the limit.

• 32 of the 65 samples tested contained traces of 3 or more different pesticides. The Sanqi flower contained up to 39 different kinds of pesticides, chrysanthemum up to 35, wolfberry up to 25.

Greenpeace demands the companies producing Chinese herbs: 

• Monitor and better control their supply chain, 

• Improve product traceability, 

• Reduce their pesticide use with concrete plans and timelines.

Greenpeace demands the Chinese authorities:

• Strengthen their use instruction for the usage of pesticides, and their supervision, ensuring that all extremely or highly hazardous pesticides are effectively eliminated from being used on Chinese herbs,

• Fully implement the pesticide use reduction policy through a detailed and achievable timetable and plan under strict data supervision mechanism,

• Increase funding and adopt preferential measures to promote ecological farming.

China’s agricultural sector mainly consists of small-holder farmers. The country’s 600 million farmers use almost two million tons of chemical pesticides every year. China urgently needs to establish a system that can raise awareness and build capacity among this large but scattered number of farmers in order to effectively control and reduce the use of pesticides. 

In rural areas, farmers largely rely on their own experience when it comes to buying and using pesticides. In the past, villages had agrotechnical extended service stations providing technical assistance to farmers. However, such stations are now being combined with a number of administrative services, such as family control, in many cases staff at these stations have also turned into the local pesticide agent. This has left them unable to play an objective role in the safe management and control of pesticides, as they perpetually lean to the promotion and sale of pesticides to farmers due to vested interests. 

The supervision mechanism for pesticide residue also has far too many gaps. A lack of food safety mechanisms at the local level, inadequate monitoring and limited capacity for effective supervision, offer frequent opportunities for pesticides to enter the food chain. Too often it is only on the occurrence of a severe food scandal, that urgent measures are taken. China should move from crisis management to sound ecological agriculture practices.

 

Compiled from a recent investigation by Greenpeace