Agriculture Ministry seeks tougher checks on pesticide use

The Ministry of Agriculture said it is preparing stricter legislation to clamp down on the excess or illegal use of pesticides, after the Financial Mirror highlighted that Cyprus tops the EU list for bug killer residues in food.

A European Food Safety Authority report released last month placed Cyprus at the top after 353 EU samples were collected.

Cyprus had 5.7 per cent over the allowable maximum residue level (MRL) legally permitted in foods or animal feeds followed by Greece and France.

Malta had topped the list with 13.5% in 2016 but managed to reduce excessive use of pesticides, bringing its rate down to 2.4% in 2017. Cyprus increased its ratios from the previous year by 0.2%.

Environmentalists and experts told the Financial Mirror they are concerned over the high rate of pesticide residue levels found but argue the problem is more widespread than what appears in the 2017 report.

According to the report, Cyprus has a particular problem with pesticides on products such as carrots, cauliflowers and potatoes, as some farmers appear to be using excess pesticides to achieve, as they believe, better results.

In a statement to the Financial Mirror, the Agriculture Department asserted it is aware of the scale of the matter and is working on having a legal framework introduced to ensure farmers think twice before overusing pesticides.

Among measures to be introduced, offending farmers will be faced with heftier fines which are to be fivefold the current level and they will be publicly named and shamed to protect public health.

“To further strengthen the legal framework, a draft law has been prepared which is currently being examined by the Legal Service. This concerns, inter alia, the increase of administrative fines from EUR 2000 to EUR 10000 and the disclosure of the names of the offending farmers,” said the ministry. The Ministry hopes to present the bill before parliament when legislators reconvene after the summer recess.

It is aware that some farmers are opting to buy unauthorized pesticides imported from Turkey by Turkish Cypriots, an issue raised in the Financial Mirror article.

“The Department of Agriculture, jointly and in direct cooperation with the security authorities of the Republic, is conducting targeted operations to combat the phenomenon.

“It is noted that a case of possession and marketing of unauthorized plant protection products has already been ruled upon with the offender awaiting sentence with penalties ranging from fines to imprisonment.”

The Department of Agriculture noted that one of its targets is to educate and convince farmers to promote biological farming.

“As a result of a targeted Agricultural Development Programme, the area of cultivated land used for bio-farming has reached 4.5% of the total land used in farming, increasing from 0.12% in 2002. Today’s percentage of land used in Cyprus for bio-farming is not far from the EU average.”

The Department of Agriculture said it remains committed to continuing checks on producers, importers, middlemen and pesticide sellers.

Experts have expressed their concern over the way checks are currently being conducted as the issue of traceability comes into play.

Confirming the magnitude of the problem with pesticide residues on fresh produce, Cyprus Green MP Charalampos Theopemptou told the Financial Mirror the whole system of checking fresh produce needs overhauling.

“Checks are performed only at the shelves of supermarkets and not in the fields or even the producers’ warehouses,” said Theopemptou.

“This creates a problem of traceability. When the Health Services go to inspect fresh produce on the shelves of a supermarket or a grocer’s they find that they are not able to identify the producer as sellers tend to mix the produce of various producers,” he added.

Growers place their card in each box of fresh produce they send to the market, but “cards tend to get misplaced…”

Theopemptou also argues that farmers should turn to biological pesticides and greener ways of dealing with pests and plant diseases.

He also encouraged people to grow fresh produce at home.