Test kit shortage raises food safety concerns

THE State Laboratory suspended analyses of domestic and imported food products due to a lack of test kits.

Because of the lack of pesticide tests, it is “unknown how safe the fruit and vegetables we eat are”, according to a report by Cyprus Today’s Turkish-language sister newspaper Kıbrıs.

Speaking to Kıbrıs, Agriculture Department Director Reşat Değirmenci said that the kits are used in food analysis tests for 352 “standard substances” and that crops are destroyed if the pesticide levels recorded are too high.

“These [test kits] are unavailable in our country right now so analysis cannot be done,” he confirmed last week.

Mr Değirmenci noted that analysis is carried out on imported products before they enter the country and that similar tests are run on products that are exported.

Pointing out that products cannot be exported if these analyses are not done, Mr Değirmenci said that the Agriculture Department releases the results of imported and domestically produced food inspections every Friday.

Mr Değirmenci said his department had written to the Cyprus Turkish Vegetable and Fruit Wholesalers Association requesting that imported products from Turkey be analysed before they come to the TRNC, adding that products that have not been analysed will not be allowed to be imported.

Agricultural Engineers’ Chamber (ZMO) president Erkut Uluçam said: “Even though imported products shipped to our country have been analysed, we can’t know whether they are the same products whose samples were given to the laboratory without analysing them in our own country. At this point, abuses can occur.”

PESTICIDE RESIDUES

Mr Uluçam said that there had been an instance where checks performed by an importer in Turkey on produce came back “clean”, but pesticide residues were then found on the produce when it was tested in North Cyprus.

“This is why test kits are urgently needed,” he said, adding that residues cannot be removed by “washing or by soaking in carbonated-vinegar water”.

The number of test kits needed for food analysis should be determined in advance and it should be investigated why there is a shortage of kits, he added.

“These kits need to be procured from Turkey, the Health Ministry should take action quickly.”

Mr Uluçam recalled that the last time food analyses could not be carried out for some time was in 2016 because of a fire in the State Laboratory. Health Minister Ali Pilli said in

response to questions from an MP in Parliament on Tuesday that he has ordered an investigation into the lack of pesticide test kits.

On Thursday Dr Pilli announced that a batch of test kits had arrived from Turkey the previous evening and had begun to be used.