Coffee, tea, spices and legumes… We may well ban certain pesticides in France and on European soil, but they are still produced there for export. Worse still, they are found in many imported products.
Problematic imported products
This is what has just been highlighted by an investigation by the investigative show “Green with rage”, broadcast on September 24 on France 5. The show’s team analyzed 22 samples of fruits and vegetables purchased in major French supermarket chains. In the end, a third (seven) contained pesticide residues banned in Europe. What’s more, a grapefruit from China contained two products banned for over a decade and considered endocrine disruptors, neurotoxic and even reprotoxic, i.e. toxic for reproduction.
Coffee, spices, passion fruit, legumes, oranges, plums, grapes, tea… The list of products concerned is long. Thus, “Imported food is twice as likely to contain EU-banned pesticides as food grown in the European Union”. Of course, products from elsewhere do not systematically contain pesticides banned in the European Union. But the risk of detecting them in these products is much higher. Which sources are most at risk? According to “Green with rage”over three years,« 26.46% of products distributed in France containing banned pesticides came from India« . Which makes this country the most frequent source for this subject.
In 2023, due to a legislative loophole, our country marketed 7,400 T of #pesticides prohibited due to their danger to health and the environment.
In 2022 the government committed to remedying this.
The investigation of @vert_de_rage_F5 @PublicEyeSuisse reveals that nothing has changed pic.twitter.com/nIIddY5Nih— Nicolas THIERRY (@nthierry) September 24, 2024
Exported pesticides that come back to us
Another major concern: among the substances identified in 2022, five pesticides had in fact been exported from France. Indeed, “Green with rage” also looked, in partnership with the Swiss NGO Public Eye, at pesticides withdrawn from the European market, but still produced in France. Products exported to countries where they are still authorized. Last year, these banned pesticides were first sent – largely – to Brazil, then to Ukraine, the United States, Russia and the United Kingdom.
According to data compiled by Public Eye and Unearthed, the investigative unit of the British branch of Greenpeace, in 2023, the French authorities authorized the export of approximately 7,300 tons of banned pesticides. Thus, the banned substances that France still exports end up returning… to our plates! But the fact that they are still produced in France also means that they are found in certain samples of drinking water, surface water and groundwater near the Syngenta sites in Saint-Pierre-la-Garenne (Eure), and BASF in Saint-Aubin-lès-Elbeuf (Seine-Maritime). And this is even if the levels do not always exceed the standards.
Read also
Which fruits and vegetables are most contaminated by pesticides?
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