One batch of cowpeas contains residues of 8 pesticides: when will the pesticide cocktail therapy end?

The "cocktail therapy" of mixing multiple pesticides adds to the burden on human health

Recently, the Consumers' Foundation conducted spot checks on cowpeas, green beans, peas and bell peppers sold on the market, and found that many samples tested positive for 7 or 8 pesticide residues at the same time. It is not only the Consumers' Foundation; when health agencies routinely test vegetables sold on the market, they also frequently find multiple pesticides, and the situation is most serious for bean vegetables.

The agricultural sector often jokingly calls this practice of using multiple pesticides on a single crop to control pests and diseases "cocktail therapy." In the medical field, the term "cocktail therapy" describes combining different types of anti-AIDS drugs for AIDS patients, to prevent the virus from rapidly developing resistance to a single drug and to prolong patients' survival rate.

But in agriculture, "cocktail therapy" describes some farmers using conventional farming methods who like to mix different types of pesticides, hoping to solve pests and diseases all at once. Unlike AIDS treatment, the cocktail therapy of pesticides may not only cause pests and diseases to develop resistance, but also damage the environment. Once the human body simultaneously ingests fruits and vegetables with multiple pesticide residues, it increases the burden on the liver and kidneys to metabolize toxic substances, harming health, not to mention the risk that farmers applying pesticides are simultaneously exposed to high doses of multiple pesticides.

Weng Su-shen, retired section chief of the Residue Control Division at the Agricultural Chemicals and Toxic Substances Research Institute of the Council of Agriculture and a pesticide expert, pointed out that crops such as bean vegetables or bell peppers are more often found to have multiple pesticide residues. On the one hand, this may be because farmers are used to applying another type of pesticide to control different pests and diseases after applying one pesticide but before its residue has declined, so that agricultural products test positive for multiple pesticide residues.

Another possibility is that when farmers are at a loss over pests and diseases, they adopt "cocktail therapy" under the recommendation of pesticide shops by mixing multiple pesticides to control pests and diseases. This is because pesticide shops may worry that recommending a single pesticide will have poor pest and disease control results and affect farmers' confidence in the shop, so they simply recommend multiple agents at the same time in pursuit of quick results.

The government should invest more resources in pest and disease control research

"Agricultural authorities, especially research institutes and various improvement stations, need to invest more funding and resources in domestic research on pest and disease control for fruits and vegetables," Weng Su-shen said, based on her observations from more than 20 to 30 years of service in the public sector. For agricultural products for export such as mangoes, lychees and edamame, the government invests relatively ample funding in pest and disease control research and guidance for farmers, because once these export agricultural products fail pesticide residue inspections by importing countries at customs, not only will the entire container of agricultural products be returned, but the export of the entire industry will also be affected.

Weng Su-shen said that over the past 10 to 20 years, agricultural products such as mangoes and edamame have also often had cases of failing pesticide residue inspections. In particular, farmers applying pesticides not permitted by importing countries caused entire batches of agricultural products to be returned or destroyed, severely damaging industry exports, forcing agricultural authorities to actively guide farmers on safe pesticide use for these major export crops. This also drove up the quality of related agricultural products for domestic sale, greatly reducing the proportion of such agricultural products failing pesticide inspections.

In contrast, major domestic vegetables are not only cheap in unit price, but also do not face the pressure of being returned due to failed pesticide inspections like other export agricultural products. The resources invested by agricultural authorities in this area, including pest and disease control research and guidance for farmers on pesticide use, are correspondingly inadequate.

"When vegetable farmers encounter pests and diseases and cannot find plant protection experts at research institutes or improvement stations for consultation, of course they ask pesticide shops for help," Weng Su-shen said directly. The Council of Agriculture should not apply a "double standard" in its resource investment in agricultural product safety. On the contrary, domestically sold agricultural products concern the health of the people of the country, and the related farmers are also most in need of assistance with pesticide use consultation. The Council of Agriculture should invest more in guidance for farmers selling domestically, so that the pesticide "cocktail therapy" situation can truly be ended once and for all.

(Results of the Consumers' Foundation spot check of pesticide residues in cowpeas sold on the market: 10 of 11 items failed pesticide residue standards, and 9 items had at least four pesticide residues. The following are examples for illustration.)

Data/Consumers' Foundation news release on 20130705. Table/News&Market

Control Yuan: Pesticide residue rate in raw eaten vegetables is far higher than the overall vegetable residue failure rate

Weng Su-shen's statement was not groundless. According to the Control Yuan investigation report, during the period from June of ROC year 99 to September of ROC year 100, the Agricultural Chemicals and Toxic Substances Research Institute of the Council of Agriculture conducted field pesticide residue testing on 110 fruit and vegetable samples in Yunlin County, Pingtung County, Yilan County, Nantou County, the former Taichung County, the former Tainan County, the former Kaohsiung County and Tainan City, etc. About 87% of the sampled fruit and vegetable crops had already been fully harvested and marketed before the test results came out. Among them, more than 30% even completed harvesting on the same day as sampling, causing fruits and vegetables that failed pesticide residue tests to still flow onto the market and be eaten by the public.

The Control Yuan investigation report also pointed out that although the Council of Agriculture claimed it would notify county and city governments after field fruit and vegetable pesticide residue test results, and that county and city governments would then carry out follow-up measures for agricultural products that failed inspection, including tracing the source of production, ordering delayed harvesting, conducting safe pesticide use education and listing them as targets for repeat sampling. But in fact, according to the investigation, as of ROC year 100, no farmer had been penalized for failing to delay harvesting as required, and the Council of Agriculture also replied to the Control Yuan that, limited by manpower and time constraints, there was no relevant supervision and management mechanism.

In addition, the Control Yuan also conducted an investigation into the pesticide residue problem in field raw eaten vegetables. Raw eaten vegetables such as cucumbers, carrots, tomatoes and bell peppers are a major category of vegetable consumption for the people of the country, and cucumbers, carrots and tomatoes are among the top 20 vegetables by trading volume in past years.

But according to the results of pesticide residue monitoring and testing of cucumbers, carrots, tomatoes and bell peppers in fields and collection yards from ROC years 96 to 99, the pesticide residue failure rates were 4.4%, 5.0%, 6.9% and 19.6%, respectively, with bell peppers the most serious, and the pesticide residue failure rate of such raw eaten vegetables was also higher than the overall vegetable pesticide residue failure rate.

Taiwan's pesticide detection rate and failure rate are both much higher than those of the United States and Japan

Compared with the United States and Japan, Taiwan's agricultural product safety performance is even more embarrassing. According to Issue 3 of the "Annual Report of Food and Drug Research", the article "Monitoring of Pesticide Residues in Agricultural Products Sold on the Market and at Packing Houses" pointed out that the pesticide detection rate and failure rate of agricultural products in our country are both higher than those of the United States and Japan.

The "detection rate" can reflect whether agricultural products comply with the pre-harvest safety interval before being marketed, because although farmers apply pesticides in the fields, as long as they comply with the safe harvest interval, pesticide residues should in theory decline. The "failure rate" indicates that pesticide residues exceed the allowable amount, or that farmers applied pesticides not permitted for use.

According to this analysis by the Food and Drug Administration of the Department of Health, our country's detection rates in 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011 were 44.0, 41.6, 44.1 and 47.1%, respectively, and the failure rates were 11.8, 10.5, 9.5 and 11.0%, respectively, showing that the average detection rate and failure rate over the past 4 years were higher than those of the United States and Japan.

The Food Safety Department of the Pharmaceutical and Food Safety Bureau of Japan's Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare samples an average of as many as 150,000 agricultural product items each year, but the pesticide residue detection rate and failure rate are far lower than our country's, with a detection rate of only 0.52% and a failure rate of only 0.01%.

(The following are dynamic charts. Please place the mouse on the curves to see the numerical comparison.)

Agricultural authorities should resolve to clean up the chaos in pesticide use

As is well known, Japan's pesticide management and agricultural product safety requirements are very strict. Agricultural products such as mangoes and edamame exported from Taiwan to Japan must complete production records and pass pesticide residue testing batch by batch before they can be sold to Japan. Japan samples more than ten times the number of agricultural products sold on the market each year on average as Taiwan, but its pesticide residue detection rate and failure rate are less than one tenth of our country's. The Japanese government's gatekeeping of food safety is truly worth learning from.

To ensure agricultural product safety in Japan, the agricultural cooperatives (equivalent to our country's farmers' associations) play an important role. The national agricultural cooperatives set the standards for safe control, and prefectural agricultural cooperatives implement guidance for farmers on safe pesticide use, including teaching farmers to confirm the use method of pesticides before use, how to prevent pesticide drift, and to keep detailed records after control. When agricultural products are harvested, testing and analysis of farmers' control records are also conducted to understand pesticide residue conditions, and through channels such as symposiums, training sessions, crop-related meetings and newspapers and magazines, farmers are educated on how to produce safe agricultural products.

To ensure food safety and let consumers eat with peace of mind, the Japan Agricultural Cooperatives began promoting the production record bookkeeping movement in July of Heisei 14 (2002). First, the production department set production and cultivation standards, and the agricultural cooperatives guided farmers to use pesticides correctly according to the usage standards and to keep production records, detailing the process of field cultivation management and control, proving that producers use pesticides correctly and ensuring the safety of agricultural products.

The stones of other mountains can polish jade. When pesticide shops become the consultation target for farmers on pesticide use, when "cocktail therapy" becomes the usual means for farmers to fight pests and diseases, and when news of failed pesticide residue tests repeatedly appears in the media, we look forward to Taiwan's agricultural authorities resolving to clean up the chaos in pesticide use. After all, if Japan can do it, why can't Taiwan? If export agricultural products can achieve pesticide residue safety gatekeeping, why can't domestically sold agricultural products?

Consumers' Foundation investigation of bean vegetables and bell peppers sold on the market finds serious excessive residues and multiple pesticides