2024-10-08 16:27:00
Spain is leader in the sale of pesticides in the European Union. In 2022, the last year with available data, our country fell from first to second place, but only because there was a 26% reduction in sales due not to a reduction policy but to the severe drought and the ban on some products plant protection in the European Union).
And like every year, the Ecologistas en Acción association publishes its report Directly to your hormones. Pesticide residues in Spanish foods.
Well, foods sold in 2022, whether imported or produced in Spain, did residues of 106 pesticidesmeaning that 36% of the samples had residues of one or more of these potentially toxic products. This percentage is increasing up to 43% for fruit and vegetables.
The work summarizes the results of analyzes by the Spanish Agency for Food Safety and Nutrition (AESAN) on 1,743 samples of food on sale in Spain in 2022, focusing on the identification of three particularly toxic groups: unauthorized substancescandidates to be replaced due to their high toxicity and those that have the capacity to do so alter the hormonal system or endocrine disruptors.
Study of food toxins
A first result of the study is that the data from the initial analyzes are less representative each year as AESAN continues its downward trend in the number of samples taken, which places Spain is at the bottom of the EU with 3.61 samples per 100,000 inhabitants. Wow, we take few samples even though our food is full of pesticides.
And according to the aforementioned association the following were detected:
-59 endocrine disrupting pesticides, including DDT.
-32 pesticides Unauthorized in the European Union.
-17 plant protection products candidates for substitution due to their carcinogenic effects, toxic effects for reproduction, endocrine disruption or satisfying two of the following three characteristics: persistence, bioaccumulation and toxicity.
For all this, the population is exposed to these toxic chemicals present in foodseven if in small quantities since in 99% of cases they did not violate the legal limits. But these need to be revised because they do not take into account the fact that hormone-disrupting pesticides work at very low doses.
The legal limits also do not take into account the combined effect of a multitude of substances, which effect food safety at risk and which cannot be analyzed in any toxicity study, something the scientific community warns about.
The pear with 9 residues
The cocktail of pesticides occurs, in 22% of cases, in the same foodwith multiple samples contaminated by various pesticides (the extreme case is that of a sample of pear containing residues of 9 different substances).
But it is also put inside risk to the health of people working in the sectoron too many occasions, without adequate safety measures. And of course, the use of these products involves the devastation of the natural environment surrounding the fields where pesticides are applied, seriously compromising biodiversity.
Finally, the pesticides present in foods are higher than those analyzed from the beginning AESAN does not search in their works the presence of substances that agriculture actually uses, such as for example glyphosatethe second best-selling pesticide in Spain in 2022 but whose presence was not looked for in any sample.
From all of the above it can be deduced that Spain continues to opt for a food system highly dependent on the pesticides it uses. risk to the health of the population and nature.
As indicated by environmentalists in action:
The Spanish Food Safety Agency must improve food control by expanding the number of samples analyzed and the number of pesticides analyzed in each sample, among which it should include plant protection products actually used in the fieldslike glyphosate.
On the other hand, the Ministry of Agriculture should change the course it has followed for too many years and help differentiate foods produced in Spain as healthy products free of toxic substances. ecologicalthat allow their producers to live with dignity.
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