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The report itself[†] blames the pesticide residue on a "boomerang effect" from EU countries: EU countries export these banned pesticides to third countries, tho

The report itself[†] blames the pesticide residue on a "boomerang effect" from EU countries: EU countries export these banned pesticides to third countries, those countries use the banned pesticides on the food they grow, and then the EU countries import that food. In effect, EU companies are still profiting off of the sale and use of banned pesticides on food that Europeans will eat. [†] https://www.foodwatch.org/fileadmin/-INT/pesticides/banned_pesticides_on_the_menu_residues_found_in_tea_rice_and_spices.pdf https://www.foodwatch.org/fileadmin/-INT/pesticides/banned_p...

LorenPechtel 5mo ago
Object on "blame"--it is actually only saying that this scenario is possible, it is not establishing that it actually is the cause.
ars 5mo ago
I checked the list of pesticides in the article, and almost all of them were banned because of the effect on pollinators, not because of human health. So using these pesticides only on products for export makes utterly no sense!
- Jensson 5mo ago
  They were never used in EU, what happened was that EU exports the pesticides and then they are used in other countries and then those food products are imported into EU. So EU makes pesticides that itself bans from being used on their own fields. Which isn't that weird, it isn't the chemical that is banned it is using it as a pesticide that is banned.
mhitza 5mo ago
That is one reason why I, at least try to, check the label and avoid products with non-EU ingredients. Also one of my worries with the mercusour trade deal. And any deal that involves meat imports from the US, with specific laxer regulation requirements (at least what Trump would like).
- vladvasiliu 5mo ago
  I think the biggest scandal in this whole thing, which isn't talked about enough, is just how much of a joke enforcement of labelling is.
culi 5mo ago
Unfortunately this is an all too common pattern in the history of pesticides. In 1979 DBCP was banned in the US after factory workers became sterile. Dow Chemical happily shipped tons of it to be sprayed directly on banana workers in banana republics[0] by Dole/Chiquita/Del Monte. To this day Costa Rica, Honduras, Guatemala, Panama, and Nicaragua have some of the highest rates of infertility, birth defects, and chronic illnesses in the world This was just after the Gros Michel had gone basically extinct because of monocropping. The banana companies hired scientists to figure out what to do that almost universally recommended diversifying the crop. But they calculated that it'd actually be cheaper to just double down on pesticide application and start again with another monocrop. There's an incredible documentary about the banana industry history (and practices that continue to this day like banana companies paying gangs to assassinate local labor leaders) called Bananaland: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoRmtQht8-E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoRmtQht8-E [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_republic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_republic
- 7moritz7 5mo ago
  I'd be more scared of publicly criticizing Chiquita than the CIA at this point
  - culi 5mo ago
    All but 2 countries in South America have had the experience of democratically electing a leader only to have them overthrown in a US-backed coup. The US/CIA started with this obsession with the 1954 Guatemalan Coup specifically to maintain Guatemala as a banana republic. Chiquita owned most land in Guatemala and left is uncultivated to stifle competition. Jacobo Árbenz wanted to (slightly) tax this land to reduce poverty. Chiquita hired Edward Bernays (yes, that guy. The father of modern public relations, nephew of Freud, etc) for an influence campaign and eventually got CIA to launch Operation PBSuccess in 1953. The CIA/Chiquita gave very extensive lists of political opponents to murder during the coup. So what's really the difference?
    - dylan604 5mo ago
thesmtsolver2 5mo ago
> EU countries export these banned pesticides to third countries Shouldn't EU ban ideally exports of good that it bans internally?
- im3w1l 5mo ago
  Only if you see the world in black and white and those pesticides being an absolute evil. But if you see it as a complicated tradeoff where whats right for one country can be wrong for another then it's unproblematic.
  - gibspaulding 5mo ago
    In other words, “yes, definitely”. But they won’t because €€€€€.
  - thesmtsolver2 5mo ago
    > But if you see it as a complicated tradeoff where whats right for one country can be wrong for another then it's unproblematic. How can anyone entertain that belief unless: a) they think people in other countries have a different biology b) profits matter more than the health of people in other countries (mostly former colonies of Europe)
    - mrob 5mo ago
      They can believe that: Capitalism is the most effective driver of progress known. Capitalism has lifted enormous numbers of people out of absolute poverty and is a great positive for the world. Inequality is an unavoidable side-effect of capitalism. The optimal risk:benefit tradeoff depends on the resources you have available. It can be rational behavior for a poor person to take greater risks with their health than a rich person, because the value of wealth has strongly diminishing returns. I personally believe we should have state-enforced wealth redistribution to limit this scenario to a reasonable minimum, but I'm not so naive as to think eliminating it entirely would be the globally optimal solution. In practice, "everybody gets identical protection from pesticides" means "everybody is poor".
- 5mo ago
germandiago 5mo ago
You cannot blame like this the administration when you make any regulatory mistake such as not knowing a rule or not being able to enforce it in practice. It is amazing that we have regulations for everything and that when they cannot enforce it, they blame someone else. Different way of dealing with people depending on who, not what.
franciscop 5mo ago
I know someone close who grows oranges in Spain. He has to go through hell, had to rework multiple times the fields so that they pass the strict Spanish regulation for organic produce. They get evaluated not only on the final product being pesticide free, but also on the full process being compliant, with heavy fines for non compliance. This is fine-ish, except that the imported oranges get checked only seldomly (if that) and are given a lot of leeway, making it very hard to compete if you grow them locally. Last couple of years saw some profit for growing them locally, but it's been times where there was literally no profit at all for 5+ years. Funny story: he requested a permit to build a well, and ofc it takes forever so he just waited. After 4-5 years waiting, having even forgotten about it, someone called him: "we're here to inspect the well". What well? You haven't given me permission yet. "yes, we know, but people build them anyway before getting permission so we thought you'd do the same".
- jenadine 5mo ago
  > strict Spanish regulation for organic produce. Organic labels are a different thing than official regulation though. IMHO organic labels optimize for the wrong things.
  - tfourb 5mo ago
    There is an official eu organic label. It’s not compulsory of course, but it’s the baseline for organic food production in and for Europe. Other (private) labels have stricter rules and are usually certified in addition to the EU label.
    - franciscop 5mo ago
      No, this is definitely an official gvmt body that can fine you if you try to sell fruit as organic that doesn't follow the regulations. It IS definitely compulsory if you mark your produce as organic.
  - lukan 5mo ago
    "IMHO organic labels optimize for the wrong things." What do you mean? I only know of "Demeter", that also has some very esoteric requirements (homeopathy, cosmic energy flow rituals) - but otherwise organic label optimize for: - no or little pesticides and herbicides - more space and better condition for the animals My only other grievance is that they also all ban GMO
interludead 5mo ago
It also shifts a lot of the real exposure onto farm workers and local environments outside the EU, while EU firms still capture the upside

LorenPechtel 5mo ago

Object on "blame"--it is actually only saying that this scenario is possible, it is not establishing that it actually is the cause.

ars 5mo ago

I checked the list of pesticides in the article, and almost all of them were banned because of the effect on pollinators, not because of human health. So using these pesticides only on products for export makes utterly no sense!

Jensson 5mo ago
They were never used in EU, what happened was that EU exports the pesticides and then they are used in other countries and then those food products are imported into EU. So EU makes pesticides that itself bans from being used on their own fields. Which isn't that weird, it isn't the chemical that is banned it is using it as a pesticide that is banned.

mhitza 5mo ago

That is one reason why I, at least try to, check the label and avoid products with non-EU ingredients. Also one of my worries with the mercusour trade deal. And any deal that involves meat imports from the US, with specific laxer regulation requirements (at least what Trump would like).

vladvasiliu 5mo ago
I think the biggest scandal in this whole thing, which isn't talked about enough, is just how much of a joke enforcement of labelling is.

culi 5mo ago

Unfortunately this is an all too common pattern in the history of pesticides. In 1979 DBCP was banned in the US after factory workers became sterile. Dow Chemical happily shipped tons of it to be sprayed directly on banana workers in banana republics[0] by Dole/Chiquita/Del Monte. To this day Costa Rica, Honduras, Guatemala, Panama, and Nicaragua have some of the highest rates of infertility, birth defects, and chronic illnesses in the world This was just after the Gros Michel had gone basically extinct because of monocropping. The banana companies hired scientists to figure out what to do that almost universally recommended diversifying the crop. But they calculated that it'd actually be cheaper to just double down on pesticide application and start again with another monocrop. There's an incredible documentary about the banana industry history (and practices that continue to this day like banana companies paying gangs to assassinate local labor leaders) called Bananaland: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoRmtQht8-E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoRmtQht8-E [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_republic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_republic

7moritz7 5mo ago
I'd be more scared of publicly criticizing Chiquita than the CIA at this point
- culi 5mo ago
  All but 2 countries in South America have had the experience of democratically electing a leader only to have them overthrown in a US-backed coup. The US/CIA started with this obsession with the 1954 Guatemalan Coup specifically to maintain Guatemala as a banana republic. Chiquita owned most land in Guatemala and left is uncultivated to stifle competition. Jacobo Árbenz wanted to (slightly) tax this land to reduce poverty. Chiquita hired Edward Bernays (yes, that guy. The father of modern public relations, nephew of Freud, etc) for an influence campaign and eventually got CIA to launch Operation PBSuccess in 1953. The CIA/Chiquita gave very extensive lists of political opponents to murder during the coup. So what's really the difference?
  - dylan604 5mo ago

thesmtsolver2 5mo ago

> EU countries export these banned pesticides to third countries Shouldn't EU ban ideally exports of good that it bans internally?

im3w1l 5mo ago
Only if you see the world in black and white and those pesticides being an absolute evil. But if you see it as a complicated tradeoff where whats right for one country can be wrong for another then it's unproblematic.
- gibspaulding 5mo ago
  In other words, “yes, definitely”. But they won’t because €€€€€.
- thesmtsolver2 5mo ago
  > But if you see it as a complicated tradeoff where whats right for one country can be wrong for another then it's unproblematic. How can anyone entertain that belief unless: a) they think people in other countries have a different biology b) profits matter more than the health of people in other countries (mostly former colonies of Europe)
  - mrob 5mo ago
    They can believe that: Capitalism is the most effective driver of progress known. Capitalism has lifted enormous numbers of people out of absolute poverty and is a great positive for the world. Inequality is an unavoidable side-effect of capitalism. The optimal risk:benefit tradeoff depends on the resources you have available. It can be rational behavior for a poor person to take greater risks with their health than a rich person, because the value of wealth has strongly diminishing returns. I personally believe we should have state-enforced wealth redistribution to limit this scenario to a reasonable minimum, but I'm not so naive as to think eliminating it entirely would be the globally optimal solution. In practice, "everybody gets identical protection from pesticides" means "everybody is poor".
5mo ago

germandiago 5mo ago

You cannot blame like this the administration when you make any regulatory mistake such as not knowing a rule or not being able to enforce it in practice. It is amazing that we have regulations for everything and that when they cannot enforce it, they blame someone else. Different way of dealing with people depending on who, not what.

franciscop 5mo ago

I know someone close who grows oranges in Spain. He has to go through hell, had to rework multiple times the fields so that they pass the strict Spanish regulation for organic produce. They get evaluated not only on the final product being pesticide free, but also on the full process being compliant, with heavy fines for non compliance. This is fine-ish, except that the imported oranges get checked only seldomly (if that) and are given a lot of leeway, making it very hard to compete if you grow them locally. Last couple of years saw some profit for growing them locally, but it's been times where there was literally no profit at all for 5+ years. Funny story: he requested a permit to build a well, and ofc it takes forever so he just waited. After 4-5 years waiting, having even forgotten about it, someone called him: "we're here to inspect the well". What well? You haven't given me permission yet. "yes, we know, but people build them anyway before getting permission so we thought you'd do the same".

jenadine 5mo ago
> strict Spanish regulation for organic produce. Organic labels are a different thing than official regulation though. IMHO organic labels optimize for the wrong things.
- tfourb 5mo ago
  There is an official eu organic label. It’s not compulsory of course, but it’s the baseline for organic food production in and for Europe. Other (private) labels have stricter rules and are usually certified in addition to the EU label.
  - franciscop 5mo ago
    No, this is definitely an official gvmt body that can fine you if you try to sell fruit as organic that doesn't follow the regulations. It IS definitely compulsory if you mark your produce as organic.
- lukan 5mo ago
  "IMHO organic labels optimize for the wrong things." What do you mean? I only know of "Demeter", that also has some very esoteric requirements (homeopathy, cosmic energy flow rituals) - but otherwise organic label optimize for: - no or little pesticides and herbicides - more space and better condition for the animals My only other grievance is that they also all ban GMO

interludead 5mo ago

It also shifts a lot of the real exposure onto farm workers and local environments outside the EU, while EU firms still capture the upside