6 ms·

It is forbidden to use Chlorpyrifos in the EU, but in Morocco it's used. Recently, imports of olives contaminated with high levels of this chemical have been de

by drtgh 3y ago

It is forbidden to use Chlorpyrifos in the EU, but in Morocco it's used. Recently, imports of olives contaminated with high levels of this chemical have been detected, but they have entered into the EU. Oftopic but related, In Morocco, too, strawberries are irrigated with sewage water, and several times this year consignments of strawberries contaminated with hepatitis virus have been detected, but unfortunately they have also entered the EU. The point is that if health is at risk, then it should be banned at each of its sources, importation included. Morocco is preparing a major import hub through the Canary Islands, which is expected to "un-label" the source of products, I guess. Is aware the EU about this?

jiwidi 3y ago
EU is aware, but are too afraid to enforce it that way. See all the protest from farmers in the last months, one of their main demands is that imported foods are also subject to same rules they are.
- yard2010 3y ago
  Awareness !== Competency
bone_frequency 3y ago
What kind of leverage does Morocco have to get away with this?
- pgeorgi 3y ago
  People like to buy cheap stuff. And if that fails, there's always Ceuta and Melilla.
  - autoexec 3y ago
    I doubt most of the savings are passed on to the consumer. Companies will typically charge consumers as much as they can get away with no matter what their costs are and will happily poison people with shitty contaminated fruit if the lower costs mean they can stuff their pockets with more money while continuing to keep consumer prices as high as possible.
RamblingCTO 3y ago
Source on "Morocco is preparing a major import hub through the Canary Islands, which is expected to "un-label" the source of products, I guess."? The legislation is pretty clear imho. Raw food needs to be labelled when it comes to the origin. Even processed food needs to state the origin of their main ingredient. Good point on moroccan stuff, will try to avoid it in the future.
- wouldbecouldbe 3y ago
  Origin fraud happens all the time. For instance to circumvent the embargo of fruit trees in Russia, Dutch farmers use Belarus to relabel the origin their products and continue selling. This was before the war, but probably still going on. Olive Oil is also a fun one: "Operation Golden Oil (2008, Italy): In March 2008, 400 Italian police officers conducted “Operation Golden Oil,” arresting 23 people and confiscating 85 farms after uncovering a large-scale scheme to relabel oils from other Mediterranean nations as Italian ." https://ilcircolo.eu/unveiling-the-truth-combating-olive-oil-fraud/ https://ilcircolo.eu/unveiling-the-truth-combating-olive-oil...
  - toomuchtodo 3y ago
    Related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39583945 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39583945 ("HN: Combating olive oil fraud with nuclear innovations")
  - RamblingCTO 3y ago
    Gotcha, I thought this would be a legal circumvention, hence asking for sources. So it's still fraud. That's what I wanted to know, thanks!
LtdJorge 3y ago
It is crazy that we (Spain) are importing olives from Morocco into the EU when we are the largest producer of olives in the world, more than doubling the second.
- gedy 3y ago
  I live in the former "[fruit] Capital of the World" and surrounded by trees, and the local stores sell [fruit] from Mexico and Chile.
  - kwhitefoot 3y ago
    Same here. I am surrounded by orchards but it's rare to see a local apple in any of the local supermarkets. We get Argentinian, Tyrolean, etc., but rarely Norwegian.
- sp332 3y ago
  In New Zealand, they made a law that the largest kiwis could not be exported. Otherwise they would all be sold to other countries for more money.
  - amelius 3y ago
    I don't know about kiwis, but in general smaller fruits are richer in taste.
  - robocat 3y ago
    As a New Zealander I think you're mistaken. We are a heavily export-focused country. Quick Google shows nothing. Citation please!
- Aloisius 3y ago
  The drought has hit Spain's olive orchards quite hard and people are desperate for olive oil.
- jwells89 3y ago
  Similarly it was always surprising to find garlic in San Francisco and Oakland grocery stores that didn’t come from just down the road in Gilroy, the “Garlic Capital of the World”[0]. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilroy,_California https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilroy,_California
Scoundreller 3y ago
> In Morocco, too, strawberries are irrigated with sewage water, and several times this year consignments of strawberries contaminated with hepatitis virus Hepatitis A contamination of frozen fruits happens from time to time all around the world, but I thought it was usually linked to the picking process and processing plants. Not that irrigation can’t be blamed, but some single digit hours of sunlight exposure should inactivate viruses (even the non-enveloped kind).
- amluto 3y ago
  Why is Hepatitis A vaccination coverage so spotty in Europe (according to the WHO vaccination data)? The US has given it as part of the standard pediatric vaccination schedule for decades.
  - Scoundreller 3y ago
    Good question. In Canada it’s something you’d have to pay for (or have private benefits for) because it was seen as only necessary for international travel. If you ask for it, no doctor is going to say no (if you’re willing to pay for the drug). Maybe US recommends more because the people making the recommendations know they won’t have to pay for it and take the lowest-risk approach regardless of cost. Largely you didn’t need it if your food handling/hygiene standards are good, but when you flash freeze foods from anywhere, you dial up the freshness and risk.
fransje26 3y ago
> Is aware the EU about this? Yes, of course the EU is aware of this. Health and Food regulations apply to the products grown inside the EU. There may be partial import restrictions on GMO products and hormone-boosted meat, but other food products are generally allowed in. This is even more true with organic products, that are subjected to stringent norms and checks in the EU, but absolutely no checks when coming from outside the EU. So when buying organic bananas, from say, Africa, the probability of them actually not being organic is close to 1. Organic olive oil from Turkey? Well, let's say you can be happy if it is olive oil at all. Honey from China? Hmm.. Well.. Let's say that with 150'000 tons exported a year, their counterfeiting labs are better funded and equipped than the fraud-detection labs on the EU side. So, if you want a quality product with a relative certainty you're not being defrauded (or worse, poisoned), you buy European. Anything else? You're on your own. > which is expected to "un-label" the source of products That is not legal. But, of course, fraud exists everywhere, unfortunately.
- Al-Khwarizmi 3y ago
  The problem is that it's not always that easy to buy European. At least in Spain, it's common to see strawberries with unmarked origin or, even worse, "Origin: Spain" but it happens to be a Spanish company that brings them from Morocco and only does the packaging. (BTW, not sure if each of these things is legal or not. But the fact is that they happen. I would be happy with actually enforced laws that mandated specifying the actual origin of everything).
  - userabchn 3y ago
    Or "contains _ of EU and non-EU origin" (which I always interpret to mean probably 100% non-EU, but I wish they would at least say which countries)
    - fransje26 3y ago
      > which I always interpret to mean probably 100% non-EU They still need some of the product to come from the EU to be able to claim "EU", but if they don't go through the effort to write on the packaging which parts come from where, the product is possibly mostly non-EU, yes.. :-P And you can put your money on it that they have lobbied hard so as not to have to put the exact countries of origin on their packages. All under the "That would make the packaging confusing for consumers" guise. Or the "Our product chain is too complex, and that would be very inconvenient" guise..
myth_drannon 3y ago
In Canada, most of the clementines are from Morocco!
- pvaldes 3y ago
  Mediterranean product came from Mediterranean!. Having clementines cultured on Canada would be less probable. All this news are linked directly, with the current farmers protests. Farmers that are being manipulated very obviously by political agents on parties that in turn are puppets supported (and probably directed) by "outer group" in a divide-and-conquer mode, with their own agendas to promote". So French farmers were incited to destroy Spanish fruits, and then Spanish farmers where wipped up against Morocco farmers; and then angry Polish farmers started to destroy Ukrainian grain exports (a incredibly stupid move for Poland interests). All at the same time, veery curious. Good if they solve part of the problems, but this path is a double-edged sword. We like it or not, we live in a globalized world. "Qatar announce that will not export diesel for Spanish tractors anymore", and the Morocco strawberries will became a "clean as snow" new superfood overnight. Trust me.
  - barbazoo 3y ago
    Makes sense to grow those in California or Mexico for the Canadian market as they often do.
  - drtgh 3y ago
    Each EU member is responsible for analyze the food that is imported crossing its borders, and they just report the results to destination. The destination of one of those consignments of contaminated strawberries from Morocco was the Netherlands; the destination was warned of the analysis, and what happened next, who knows. What you are suggesting is to use coaction, blackmailing, to stop analyzing imports into the EU, or to hide the results, that cross the EU's southern borders.
    - pvaldes 3y ago
      You didn't understood anything it seems. I'm not suggesting, I'm telling you how this will end. Don't you think that we are extremely tired of seeing French vandals --again-- assaulting and destroying Spanish fruit trucks while the gendarmerie just watch the cargo burn?. This people is attacking legal EU companies and the French police act as necessary accomplices that allow it. French government couldn't care less; they even do jokes on TV about it. Is the same stupid stunt since 70's, each time they need a scapegoat to divert the attention. Do you think that this will increase the appetite of Spaniards for French products in the near future?. I seriously doubt it. Each action triggers a reaction Second. Quality controls on EU is not a new thing. A lot of people works detecting and stopping dangerous products since decades. Thousands of this products are silently stopped and removed each year so, why do you think that this is suddenly breaking news? Have you heard about the recent scandal of Spanish strawberry farmers stealing water and sucking dry the Doñana National park?
londons_explore 3y ago
Morocco just doesn't seem to place the same importance in food cleanliness as the rest of the world. For example, they display, store and sell food directly touching the floor. Buy a kilo of flour from a seller in Morocco, and he probably was storing that flour on the street. Directly on the street - not on a plastic bag or anything. He'll literally shovel the flour from his pile on the street into your bag.
hinkley 3y ago
Are kids vaccinated for hep A and B now? Not that it’s an excuse to let pathogens into food.

by drtgh 3y ago

jiwidi 3y ago

EU is aware, but are too afraid to enforce it that way. See all the protest from farmers in the last months, one of their main demands is that imported foods are also subject to same rules they are.

yard2010 3y ago
Awareness !== Competency

bone_frequency 3y ago

What kind of leverage does Morocco have to get away with this?

pgeorgi 3y ago
People like to buy cheap stuff. And if that fails, there's always Ceuta and Melilla.
- autoexec 3y ago
  I doubt most of the savings are passed on to the consumer. Companies will typically charge consumers as much as they can get away with no matter what their costs are and will happily poison people with shitty contaminated fruit if the lower costs mean they can stuff their pockets with more money while continuing to keep consumer prices as high as possible.

RamblingCTO 3y ago

Source on "Morocco is preparing a major import hub through the Canary Islands, which is expected to "un-label" the source of products, I guess."? The legislation is pretty clear imho. Raw food needs to be labelled when it comes to the origin. Even processed food needs to state the origin of their main ingredient. Good point on moroccan stuff, will try to avoid it in the future.

wouldbecouldbe 3y ago
Origin fraud happens all the time. For instance to circumvent the embargo of fruit trees in Russia, Dutch farmers use Belarus to relabel the origin their products and continue selling. This was before the war, but probably still going on. Olive Oil is also a fun one: "Operation Golden Oil (2008, Italy): In March 2008, 400 Italian police officers conducted “Operation Golden Oil,” arresting 23 people and confiscating 85 farms after uncovering a large-scale scheme to relabel oils from other Mediterranean nations as Italian ." https://ilcircolo.eu/unveiling-the-truth-combating-olive-oil-fraud/ https://ilcircolo.eu/unveiling-the-truth-combating-olive-oil...
- toomuchtodo 3y ago
  Related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39583945 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39583945 ("HN: Combating olive oil fraud with nuclear innovations")
- RamblingCTO 3y ago
  Gotcha, I thought this would be a legal circumvention, hence asking for sources. So it's still fraud. That's what I wanted to know, thanks!

LtdJorge 3y ago

It is crazy that we (Spain) are importing olives from Morocco into the EU when we are the largest producer of olives in the world, more than doubling the second.

gedy 3y ago
I live in the former "[fruit] Capital of the World" and surrounded by trees, and the local stores sell [fruit] from Mexico and Chile.
- kwhitefoot 3y ago
  Same here. I am surrounded by orchards but it's rare to see a local apple in any of the local supermarkets. We get Argentinian, Tyrolean, etc., but rarely Norwegian.
sp332 3y ago
In New Zealand, they made a law that the largest kiwis could not be exported. Otherwise they would all be sold to other countries for more money.
- amelius 3y ago
  I don't know about kiwis, but in general smaller fruits are richer in taste.
- robocat 3y ago
  As a New Zealander I think you're mistaken. We are a heavily export-focused country. Quick Google shows nothing. Citation please!
Aloisius 3y ago
The drought has hit Spain's olive orchards quite hard and people are desperate for olive oil.
jwells89 3y ago
Similarly it was always surprising to find garlic in San Francisco and Oakland grocery stores that didn’t come from just down the road in Gilroy, the “Garlic Capital of the World”[0]. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilroy,_California https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilroy,_California

Scoundreller 3y ago

> In Morocco, too, strawberries are irrigated with sewage water, and several times this year consignments of strawberries contaminated with hepatitis virus Hepatitis A contamination of frozen fruits happens from time to time all around the world, but I thought it was usually linked to the picking process and processing plants. Not that irrigation can’t be blamed, but some single digit hours of sunlight exposure should inactivate viruses (even the non-enveloped kind).

amluto 3y ago
Why is Hepatitis A vaccination coverage so spotty in Europe (according to the WHO vaccination data)? The US has given it as part of the standard pediatric vaccination schedule for decades.
- Scoundreller 3y ago
  Good question. In Canada it’s something you’d have to pay for (or have private benefits for) because it was seen as only necessary for international travel. If you ask for it, no doctor is going to say no (if you’re willing to pay for the drug). Maybe US recommends more because the people making the recommendations know they won’t have to pay for it and take the lowest-risk approach regardless of cost. Largely you didn’t need it if your food handling/hygiene standards are good, but when you flash freeze foods from anywhere, you dial up the freshness and risk.

fransje26 3y ago

> Is aware the EU about this? Yes, of course the EU is aware of this. Health and Food regulations apply to the products grown inside the EU. There may be partial import restrictions on GMO products and hormone-boosted meat, but other food products are generally allowed in. This is even more true with organic products, that are subjected to stringent norms and checks in the EU, but absolutely no checks when coming from outside the EU. So when buying organic bananas, from say, Africa, the probability of them actually not being organic is close to 1. Organic olive oil from Turkey? Well, let's say you can be happy if it is olive oil at all. Honey from China? Hmm.. Well.. Let's say that with 150'000 tons exported a year, their counterfeiting labs are better funded and equipped than the fraud-detection labs on the EU side. So, if you want a quality product with a relative certainty you're not being defrauded (or worse, poisoned), you buy European. Anything else? You're on your own. > which is expected to "un-label" the source of products That is not legal. But, of course, fraud exists everywhere, unfortunately.

Al-Khwarizmi 3y ago
The problem is that it's not always that easy to buy European. At least in Spain, it's common to see strawberries with unmarked origin or, even worse, "Origin: Spain" but it happens to be a Spanish company that brings them from Morocco and only does the packaging. (BTW, not sure if each of these things is legal or not. But the fact is that they happen. I would be happy with actually enforced laws that mandated specifying the actual origin of everything).
- userabchn 3y ago
  Or "contains _ of EU and non-EU origin" (which I always interpret to mean probably 100% non-EU, but I wish they would at least say which countries)
  - fransje26 3y ago
    > which I always interpret to mean probably 100% non-EU They still need some of the product to come from the EU to be able to claim "EU", but if they don't go through the effort to write on the packaging which parts come from where, the product is possibly mostly non-EU, yes.. :-P And you can put your money on it that they have lobbied hard so as not to have to put the exact countries of origin on their packages. All under the "That would make the packaging confusing for consumers" guise. Or the "Our product chain is too complex, and that would be very inconvenient" guise..

myth_drannon 3y ago

In Canada, most of the clementines are from Morocco!

pvaldes 3y ago
Mediterranean product came from Mediterranean!. Having clementines cultured on Canada would be less probable. All this news are linked directly, with the current farmers protests. Farmers that are being manipulated very obviously by political agents on parties that in turn are puppets supported (and probably directed) by "outer group" in a divide-and-conquer mode, with their own agendas to promote". So French farmers were incited to destroy Spanish fruits, and then Spanish farmers where wipped up against Morocco farmers; and then angry Polish farmers started to destroy Ukrainian grain exports (a incredibly stupid move for Poland interests). All at the same time, veery curious. Good if they solve part of the problems, but this path is a double-edged sword. We like it or not, we live in a globalized world. "Qatar announce that will not export diesel for Spanish tractors anymore", and the Morocco strawberries will became a "clean as snow" new superfood overnight. Trust me.
- barbazoo 3y ago
  Makes sense to grow those in California or Mexico for the Canadian market as they often do.
- drtgh 3y ago
  Each EU member is responsible for analyze the food that is imported crossing its borders, and they just report the results to destination. The destination of one of those consignments of contaminated strawberries from Morocco was the Netherlands; the destination was warned of the analysis, and what happened next, who knows. What you are suggesting is to use coaction, blackmailing, to stop analyzing imports into the EU, or to hide the results, that cross the EU's southern borders.
  - pvaldes 3y ago
    You didn't understood anything it seems. I'm not suggesting, I'm telling you how this will end. Don't you think that we are extremely tired of seeing French vandals --again-- assaulting and destroying Spanish fruit trucks while the gendarmerie just watch the cargo burn?. This people is attacking legal EU companies and the French police act as necessary accomplices that allow it. French government couldn't care less; they even do jokes on TV about it. Is the same stupid stunt since 70's, each time they need a scapegoat to divert the attention. Do you think that this will increase the appetite of Spaniards for French products in the near future?. I seriously doubt it. Each action triggers a reaction Second. Quality controls on EU is not a new thing. A lot of people works detecting and stopping dangerous products since decades. Thousands of this products are silently stopped and removed each year so, why do you think that this is suddenly breaking news? Have you heard about the recent scandal of Spanish strawberry farmers stealing water and sucking dry the Doñana National park?

londons_explore 3y ago

Morocco just doesn't seem to place the same importance in food cleanliness as the rest of the world. For example, they display, store and sell food directly touching the floor. Buy a kilo of flour from a seller in Morocco, and he probably was storing that flour on the street. Directly on the street - not on a plastic bag or anything. He'll literally shovel the flour from his pile on the street into your bag.

hinkley 3y ago

Are kids vaccinated for hep A and B now? Not that it’s an excuse to let pathogens into food.