FLORIDA FARMERS INC.
“ A STRUGGLE FOR SURVIVAL”

PESTICIDES AND MEXICAN VEGETABLES

Pesticides are required by the federal government to ensure that the consuming public has safe, quality produce regulates pesticides. When properly used, pesticides provide consumers with effective pest control without adverse effects on man or environment. Under United States law any pesticide residue on food, above a set tolerance, is ordinarily considered unsafe.

The combined authorities of two United States regulatory agencies complicate the regulation of pesticides. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has the responsibility to register all pesticides to prior to distribution, sale or use in the United States. EPA registers a pesticide when it determines that the product, when properly applied, can safely perform its function without unreasonable risks to man or environment. In conjunction with its function, EPA has the responsibility for establishing the maximum allowable pesticide residue (tolerance) in any food. EPA establishes tolerances on the basis of the nature, amount, and toxicity of the residues.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has the responsibility for ensuring that all food marketed in the United States complies with these requirements.

The regulation of pesticide use is further clouded by the fact that pesticides produced solely for export are not required to be registered with EPA and maybe exported regardless of that pesticide´s Unite States regulatory status or the appropriateness of its intended use. To underscore this problem, in 1976, domestic producers exported over 552 million pounds of pesticides of which approximately 140 million pounds, 25 percent, were unregistered, therefore illegal for use in the United States today. Companies continue t export unregistered pesticides abroad.

The FDA deals with the unregistered pesticide problem by establishing residue levels, which are determined to be safe and unavoidable, resulting from environmental contamination rather than purposeful application of the pesticide to a crop. The use of FDA “action levels” permits the use of pesticides on imported food even though their use is not allowed in the United States.

It is unlawful for products to be sold or imported into the United States with residues of a pesticide in excess of tolerance levels or with residues of a pesticide for which there is no tolerance level established. The responsibility of determining the safety of imported foods is left to the border inspectors of the point of crossing. Less than 1% of produce entering the U.S. is actually inspected for pesticide residue.

It seems inconceivable that the United States government would ban certain pesticides for domestic use but allow imported products to be treated with the illegal pesticides. But this problem continues to exist.

A prime example of this is the pesticide, Phosvel (leptophos) which has never been registered in the U.S. and has been linked to deaths of Egyptian farmers. This dangerous, nerve-attacking pesticide is used in Mexico and traces have been found on Mexican vegetables.

This double standard of pesticide use is indefensible. If a pesticide is hazardous enough to be illegal in the United States, why is a foreign import containing the illegal substance considered safe? These double standard affects most foods imported into our country. A clear example is the use of parathion. An estimated one-fifth of the world´s parathion is applied in El Salvador-the sixth largest source of United States coffee imports. To date, the promises of the NAFTA side agreement on environmental concerns have not been fulfilled. American consumers have a vital interest in the importation of goods into this country, particularly food product. The American consumer is concerned about price and quality. And ever since the OPEC embargo of 1974, the American consumer has been concerned about the self-sufficiency of our country.

Florida law requires retailers to label produce by the country of origin. Congress should enact a national version of this law. Americans have the right to make an informed decision and the right to know that what they are eating is safe.

The following excerpts are reprinted from an article entitled “A Giant Spraying Sound” in the January / February 1996 issue of Mother Jones magazine. The article, by Esther Schrader, reports that since NAFTA, Mexican growers are spraying more toxic pesticides on fruits, vegetables—and workers.

In the Culiacan Valley of Sinaloa, it is normal for 3,000 field workers a year to be hospitalized from what is called pesticide intoxication—the racing heartbeat, loss of consciousness, pounding headache, high temperature, nausea, and burning skin that comes from overexposure to pesticides. Throughout Mexico´s agricultural belt it is common for children to break out with skin rashes that doctors cannot explain. It is considered inevitable to die young from a combination of malnutrition, inadequate living conditions, and chemical inhalation.

Government officials promised—and environmentalists hoped—that the North American Free Trade Agreement (in effect since Jan.1, 1994) would reduce the level of pesticides coating Mexico´s fields, but so far this hasn´t occurred. In fact, the competition that NAFTA has set off between growers may actually increase the amount of pesticides used on Mexican crops.

The Culiacan Valley produced much of the $3 billion´s worth of produce exported from Mexico to the United States last year. Since 1988, when Mexico began to open its markets to foreign investment, business in the valley has skyrocketed. About 250,000 acres of farmed today, more than five times as many as 10 years ago did.

Between December and May, 250,000 workers spray and harvest endless rows of plants, as planes loaded with pesticides zoom low overhead. Most of the workers are Mixtec Indians from Oaxaca, an impoverished state on Mexico´s southern edge. Many live in the migrant farm camps built by growers—long rows of corrugated thin shacks that roast the workers in the valley heat.

A 1992 Government Accounting Office study revealed that Mexican growers use at least six pesticides that are illegal in the United States, although some U.S. officials say that the number has since declined. According to a source in the Mexican Ministry of Agriculture, more than 165 million pounds of pesticides were used in the country in 1993. But the government does not release such figures, making it impossible to tell how NAFTA has affected total pesticide use.

On a single day´s visit to a farm near Culiacan, this reporter spotted workers using parathion and methamidophos, two of the most toxic organophososphates on the market. The local growers association claims neither is still used here. One was being sprayed in the fields of a grower under contract with Dole Food.

The less acutely toxic compound paraquat, endosulfan, and malathion were also in use that day, but no workers were following the safety instructions on the skull- and crossbones labels. The instructions say special gloves and masks should be worn when handling the chemicals. They say the chemicals are toxic and inflame the skin. They say it all in English, which few of the workers understand, or in Spanish, which few can read.

Most U.S. growers with operations in Culiacan claim they are not responsible for the way their Mexican partners manage their workers. “We just contract with them to buy the product,” says one grower who asked not to be named. “We do it precisely to avoid the kinds of hassles you are giving me.”

Confronted with the fact that toxic organophosphates were sprayed in a field the company has under contract, Dole Food Co. spokesman Tom Pernice said, “We recognize at the corporate level that this an issue, and we are working on an approach that can be used in foreign countries. We are going to craft something that could be successful.” Pernice says that Dole is involved in pilot programs intended to prevent pesticide abuse, but he did not return repeated phone calls asking him to name the programs.

When Mexican, Canadian, and U.S. officials first discussed creating the world´s largest free trade zone, environmentalist hoped the accord would obligate Mexico to enforce its environment standards. But neither NAFTA nor the Global Accord on Trade and Tariffs is designed to address social inequity. The pacts focus on reducing the danger to consumers from pesticide-tainted produce, and not on protecting workers.

Despite the 1987 establishment of an elaborate agency to monitor pesticide use, Mexico still does not monitor pesticide residue levels on produce. (The Mexican government leaves that to growers and U.S border authorities, which inspect an average of 1 percent of all shipments.) And while Mexico has comprehensive occupational-safety laws that mandate extensive precautions for workers who come into contact with toxic chemicals, there are no inspections to see that the laws are enforced.

“The regulations can be very good on paper, but if they don´t verify and enforce them, it´s as if they don´t exist,” says Dr. Arturo Lomeli, a prominent Mexican pesticide expert who is a member of the prestigious environment organization El Grupo de los Cien. “Inspection and enforcement of worker-safety standards are almost unheard of. In all my years traveling to the fields, I´ve never seen a worker properly garbed for pesticide application.”

If there is hope that the Mexican government will tackle pesticide abuse, it lies, advocates say, in NAFTA´s torturously complex side accords on labor and the environment. Under the accords, private citizens have the right to complain if a government or industry is violating environment of labor laws.

Esther Schrader is the award-winning Mexico City correspondent for the San Jose Mercury News. Excerpted with permission. Mother Jones? 1996, Foundation for National Progress.