Pesticides and food safety in the era of global warming

PDF

While it is a requirement to produce environmentally friendly production techniques based on sustainable use of natural resources able to protect biological diversity, agricultural activities globally have become highly dependent on the chemical industry. Engaging in agricultural activities without pesticides, hormones and artificial fertilisers is now almost impossible, even though they cause numerous health problems for many species. However, this situation is quickly drawing us towards extinction. In order not to overly expand this article, I will touch upon the chemical materials used in modern agricultural activities focusing only on pesticides and I will try to elucidate the reasons for my opinion.

Food security entails an approach that deals with processing, preparation, transportation, storage and delivery to end users of food in such a way as to prevent the biological, physical and chemical factors that cause food borne diseases. The primary aim is to assure that food remains healthy and maintains its nourishing qualities in a process summarized as ‘from the field to the table’. From the point of view of food security, toxic chemicals, the residues that they contain, are among the most significant threats to human and environmental health. A residue may refer to anything that is not inherent in the natural structure of food and that is available on, in or over plants, phytogenetic or edible animal products. Pesticides are among the most important toxic chemical substances used in agricultural production and they leave residues on food. Pesticides are substances used against creatures we believe harmful to products we grow. They are divided into groups according to their functional characteristics; for example, “herbicides” are used to wipe out weeds and “insecticides” are used to kill insects. Food is checked for pesticide residues  by laboratory analyses that should be performed regularly in order to assure food safety. Control and monitoring activities need to be conducted annually at regularly scheduled times. In other words, activities are conducted by determining first which chemical materials will be looked for and how many products will be controlled in a specific zone.

Food safety and pesticide use in Turkey

In Turkey, where modern agricultural techniques and chemicals are used intensively, there are public and private institutions active in monitoring pesticide residues. Private institutions are generally laboratories established to conduct analyses for pesticide residues in fresh produce for exportation. These institutions do not engage in activities targeted at protecting public and environmental health; the aim is to assure required analyses are performed rapidly for pesticide residues on products being exported. All controlling, monitoring and auditing duties in relation to agricultural and food products belong to the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Animal Husbandry. Controlling and monitoring food products for residues is conducted by the Provincial Food Control Laboratories and Food Control Branch Directorates functioning under this ministry. There are 41 active Food Control Laboratories in Turkey. If pesticide residue exceeding limits stipulated by law is found during analysis conducted in these labs, a fine is imposed. The problem is how an effective control can be performed. Before tackling this, one needs to examine the use of pesticides in Turkey and current legislation.

Worldwide, annual pesticide use is 3 million tons on average, whereas it is around 33 thousand tons in Turkey. Actually, this number does not mean anything; one has to delve further. Around 700 grams (Reference 1) of pesticides per hectare are used in Turkey. In comparison, the Netherlands, which has the highest pesticide use in Europe, uses nearly 13 kilograms and in Finland, the country with the lowest pesticide use, it is around 1.2 kilograms. From this perspective, the amount of pesticides used in Turkey seems quite low. However, this is not the case. The pesticide usage varies by city. For example, pesticide usage in Antalya, where fresh vegetable-fruit production is rampant, is twice the amount of the Netherlands, with approximately 26 kilograms per hectare (Reference 2). Pesticide residues are mostly found in fresh fruit and vegetable products. Therefore, routine controls on these products is imperative. According to data collected in 2011, 44.7 million tons of fresh fruits and vegetables were produced in Turkey and 7.2 per cent was exported (Reference 3). 93 percent of products produced are consumed within the country and control over them is inadequate. I will only touch upon the main points since it would take a long article to fully explain the reasons for this inadequacy.

The pesticides used in food products produced in Turkey and the allowable amounts are determined by the Turkish Food Codex (“Communique on Maximum Residue Limits on Pesticides Allowed to be Found in Food Products”). Food products submitted for consumption have to meet the threshold values for pesticide residues in this communiqué, called the “Maximum Residue Limit-MRL”. MRL denotes the maximum amount of pesticide residue legally allowed (!) to be found in food products. Pesticide residue in any food product should not exceed these thresholds. If food products contain residues above the MRL, they are considered to be harmful to health.

There are approximately 1000 chemical substances used as pesticides worldwide. In performing analyses for pesticide residues, which pesticides from among hundreds that are possibly used during agricultural production that might have left residues in the food are checked. Therefore, this trace is highly complex and, unfortunately, there are still no laboratories in Turkey that can analyse all the pesticides used in agricultural production. In other words, analysis methods used in food control laboratories are only able to determine some of the pesticides used. This problem is bigger than thought because if you do not check for all (or at least a majority) chemicals that are possibly used as pesticides during an analysis, then your analysis is worthless.

Pesticide tracking programs in Turkey conduct residue analyses for very few food products and a limited number of pesticides. For example, there are 70 thousand greenhouse producers registered in the city of Antalya. If these producers launch goods on the market once a year, we have 70 thousand samples to be analysed. It is neither possible, nor plausible, to analyse all the products  on the market. However, the number of analyses should be enough to give an idea of pesticide residues in food. However, few products are currently analysed for pesticide residues. This is limited to a few thousand food samples across the country. This is not only the case in Turkey, but worldwide. The state can control only a small portion of the market. There are many reasons for this, but I believe the most important one is that the state has left all aspects of control to what we call “the market”. In a nutshell, there is a strict relationship between the downsizing of the state as a result of neoliberal policies implemented, effacement of public life and the increase in the number and amount of toxic chemical materials in our food.

From a global perspective, the harmful effects of a chemical substance is not remain limited to the area where it was delivered. Chemical molecules know no boundaries. In time, they spread everywhere by means of chemical cycles in the planet. In fact, it is impossible to analyse all toxic substances that contaminate food through human activities and environmental pollution. Our methods are inadequate. In order to further clarify the issue, various analytical devices are used in analysing residue materials. These devices should be able to detect the types and amounts of toxic chemicals existing in food. There is an interesting situation here: there is a strict relationship between the increase in the ability of devices to perform analyses, the increase in their precision and the increase in the number of residue materials that we can check for in food. In other words, we discover new chemical substances that we were unaware of, but that have toxic effects, as we use more precise devices. These substances were available in the food products we consumed before we were able to detect them. Sometimes,  some chemical substances that are thought to be non-toxic are actually very harmful. For example, some pesticides assume much more harmful chemical compositions in a food product over time. These are observed occurrences. It is true that our methods are very inadequate.  However, we act as if we know and can control everything in spite of this. This is a complete hoax.

How will global warming influence the pesticide residue problem

Global warming is no longer a threat, it is a fact and we are now in the era of global warming. Agricultural activities across the globe using pesticides, seeds, fertilizers, genetically modified organisms etc and the food industry that has been integrated into this structure, as well as food production activities are some of the major causes of the global warming problem. Unfortunately, it does not seem possible to escape or reverse the situation. For example, the worldwide use of pesticides in the next 50 years is not going to decrease; on the contrary, it will increase. It is estimated that temperature and precipitation systems will change due to global warming, causing epidemic diseases in agricultural products, extreme rises in the number of pestilent creatures and weeds and, therefore, the use of pesticides will be obligatory (Reference 4). It is obvious that we will have to use more pesticides to protect existing products since there will be decreases (Reference 5) in product efficiencies due to increasing temperatures. As a result, this situation shall increase the possible risks for the environment and human
health. Even though it does not seem possible to prevent this situation, using chemical substances in agriculture is a matter requiring discussion.

 The view defending required use of pesticides is based on two main arguments: One is that pesticides do not harm human and environmental health and the other is that it is an obligation to use chemicals that enhance product efficiency, such as pesticides, in order to feed the growing global population and to fight hunger. As a matter of fact, both arguments are not true and they have no function other than being arguments often expressed in order to rationalize use of pesticides in agriculture.

According to those who suggest the argument that pesticides are not harmful to health, toxicological tests conducted on this matter are reliable. Toxicological tests essentially try to determine the threshold that a specific toxic chemical in a food product should exceed in order to become harmful to health. The assumption here is based on the idea that the toxic effect of a chemical will become active when it exceeds a certain dose. Therefore, they try to determine what the MRL value of a toxic chemical in food products could be. It is assumed that only circumstances where MRL values are exceeded cause problems. However, studies conducted in recent years suggest that the amounts of residues in some pesticides are harmful to health even though they are below MRL values (References 6 and 7). Our hormonal system is dealt the biggest blow and the harm is worse when consumers are of a younger age. This situation sheds suspicion on toxicological studies conducted in order to assess the effects of harmful pesticides. Additionally, toxicological studies focus on the health issues caused by a single chemical substance. However, there are hundreds of varieties of pesticides used in agriculture and it is quite possible that multiple pesticide residues be observed1. We are devoid of the scientific methods that can assess health issues that could be caused by such situations. On the other hand, one does not have to be a clairvoyant to say that exposure to such a chemical cocktail will not lead to good results.

There are various studies suggesting product losses of varying degrees, between 40 to 65 per cent, unless pesticides are used in agricultural production (References 8 and 9). However, this argument is very problematic since the social and environmental costs of using pesticides are not taken into account at all in these studies. In other words, it is emphasized that the inclusion in the total costs of the expenses made for overcoming health issues caused by any activity, eliminating the harm from the waste deposited in nature or disposing of such waste is a more suitable way for measuring the efficiency of economic activities (References 10 and 11). It would be much more accurate to examine the requirement to use pesticides in agricultural production using the approach of ecological economic theory and to determine the real costs as such. For example, a study conducted by Pimentel et al. (Reference 11) determined that the use of pesticides is not as cheap as proposed; on the contrary, it is very expensive and causes wasteful use of petrochemical resources. Another study suggests that the annual loss of products caused by insects in the 1950’s in the USA was around 7-8 percent, whereas this ratio has now reached a level of 12-13 percent (Reference 12). Even though the amount of pesticides used has increased 10 times when compared to the 1950’s, the amount of products lost on account of insects has doubled, which is rather worrisome. The fact that the problem of hunger is not solely due to inadequate food production is well-known to everyone who is slightly knowledgeable about global food policies, therefore, I will not touch upon them here.

Even though all this has been known for at least 30-40 years, pesticides are still being used. I believe we will continue to use them. Men are able to imagine the end of everything, however, they are not able to imagine that the system in which we live may have an end and may lead rapidly to our own extinction. Undoubtedly, this matter is not only about pesticides. Actually, no matter which issue we lay our hands on, we are still faced with a situation of condemnation or desperation despite the need for a radical change. Undoubtedly, there are situations that require the use of pesticides. For example, pesticides are used to combat diseases transmitted by mosquitoes, such as malaria, and provide benefits in controlling them. They should indeed be used in such situations. However, we feed millions of tons of grain to animals even though it does not suit their physiological nature and we use enormous amounts of pesticides in order to raise them. These two situations are completely different. In one, we talk about surviving, whereas in the other, we talk about a so-called consumption craze backed by science and technology. A change that would shake the position of the chemical substances used in modern agriculture does not seem possible in the short term. In the long term, it will be too late for everything, let alone for making changes in agricultural activities and our dietary habits.

Footnote

No studies have been conducted so far in order to determine how many of the food products in Turkey contain multiple pesticides. 

References

Tiryaki et al. (2010): Tarim ilaclari kullanimi ve riskleri (Use of pesticides and their risks). Erciyes Universitesi (Erciyes University) Fen Bilimleri Enstitusu Dergisi (Journal of the Natural Sciences Institute) 26 (2): 154-169.

Anonymous (2011): Antalya Tarim Master Plani (Antalya Agricultural Master Plan), Publication by Antalya Provincial Directorate for Agriculture.

Anonymous (2012): Opinion of the TMMOB (Union of Chambers of Turkish Engineers and Architects), Chamber of Agricultural Engineers; http://www.zmo.org.tr/genel/bizden_detay.php?kod=18027&tipi=5&sube=0

Miraglia et al. (2009): Climate change and food safety: An emerging issue with special focus on Europe. Food and Chemical Toxicology, Volume 47, Issue 5, 1009-1021.

Schultz N. (2009): Wheat gets worse as CO2 rises, www.newscientist.com/article/dn17617-wheat-gets-worse-as-co2-rises.html.

Mckinlay et al. (2008): Endocrine disrupting pesticides: Implications for risk assessment, in: Environment International 34 (2008), 168–183.

Mnif et al. (2011): Effect of Endocrine Disruptor Pesticides: A Review, in: International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 8 (2011), 2265-2303.

Urech, P. (2000): Sustainable agriculture and chemical control: opponents or components of the same strategy. Crop Protection 19, 831-836.

Dag et al. (2000): Turkiye’de tarim ilaclari endustrisi ve gelecegi (Pesticide industry in Turkey and its Future). http://www.zmo.org.tr/resimler/ekler/2092a75caa 75e46_ek.pdf?tipi=14&sube=.

Fratzscher, W. and Stephan, K. (2001): Waste energy utilisation-An appeal for an entropy based strategy, in: International Journal of Thermal Sciences, 40 (4), 311-315.

Pimentel D. and Pimentel M. (2008): Environmental and Economic Costs of the Application of Pesticides Primarily in the United States, 161-183, Food Energy and Society Third Edition CRC Press Taylor &Francis USA.

Weber P. (1992): A place for pesticides, in: World Watch Magazine, May/June, Vol. 5, No. 3.