"Retail" pesticide residue testing becomes a blind spot for supervision

China has gradually become the world's largest producer and consumer of vegetables
.
In 2013, the national vegetable sown area was about 200 million mu, ranking second only to food crops in the planting industry; the total output reached 700 million tons, more than 100 million tons more than grain output, ranking first among agricultural products
.
In order to ensure the safety of vegetable food, my country has formulated a special "Agricultural Product Quality and Safety Law".
On October 1st last year, the newly revised "Food Safety Law" was also implemented.
So, what is the situation of vegetable food safety? Let's take a look at the CCTV reporter's investigation of some vegetable growers
.
■Investigate the need for large amounts of pesticides for vegetable cultivation.
Zengcheng District is located in the outer suburbs of Guangzhou and is one of the important vegetable production areas in South China
.
The reporter visited and found that there are two main modes of local vegetable planting: one is a large vegetable base with a planting area of ​​thousands of acres.
The spraying and fertilizing of vegetables is all company management; the other is based on individual vegetable farmers.
There are thousands of retail vegetable farmers.
The planting area varies from a few cents, a few acres to a dozen acres, and they are scattered in many towns in Zengcheng District
.
It is understood that these individual vegetable farmers spraying pesticides and fertilizing vegetables are all done by themselves, and the pesticides used are generally purchased from individual pesticide stores nearby
.
The reporter found an individual pesticide store near the retail vegetable growing area in Shitan Town, Zengcheng District
.
According to the owner, the local retail farmers have a great demand for pesticides when growing vegetables, so there are many pesticide shops
.
This pesticide shop is small in scale, but it sells a wide variety of pesticides
.
When the reporter tried to understand the specific name of the pesticides used by retail vegetable farmers, the shopkeeper refused to say more, but revealed the approximate time when the vegetable farmers sprayed the vegetables every day: usually they do not spray the pesticides in the morning, and they spray the pesticides at four or five in the afternoon
.
In the afternoon of the same day, the reporter went to the retail vegetable growing area in Baijiang Village, Shitan Town, and happened to meet a vegetable farmer who sprayed vegetables
.
Vegetable farmers told reporters that they mainly grow loofah, bitter gourd, cowpea and some leafy vegetables here
.
These vegetables are basically grown in the open air and are greatly affected by the weather, so a lot of pesticides are needed to prevent pests and diseases.

.
The vegetable farmer picked up a portable sprayer full of pesticides, walked into a vegetable field where bitter gourd was grown, and started spraying the medicine
.
The reporter noticed that the vegetable farmer deliberately strengthened protective measures when spraying pesticides, wearing a mask on his head and a cloth cover on his arms
.
The vegetable farmer said that he did this to reduce the damage to himself when spraying pesticides
.
What kind of pesticides does this vegetable farmer use when the registration of pesticides is cancelled? What kind of pesticides need to be strengthened in this way? Next to the canal near the vegetable field, the reporter witnessed the whole process of the vegetable farmer preparing pesticides, and saw him pour several kinds of pesticides into plastic buckets for mixing
.
When one of the bottles of pesticide was opened, the reporter smelled a pungent smell
.
"Chlorpyrifos" is printed on the packaging bottle of this pungent pesticide
.
According to reports, chlorpyrifos is a moderately toxic insecticide
.
As the results of the pesticide residue verification test showed that even if chlorpyrifos is used in accordance with the prescribed methods and dosages, there is still a risk of pesticide residues exceeding the standard.
Therefore, in 2013, the Ministry of Agriculture issued Announcement No.
2032 and decided to withdraw from December 31, 2014.
Registration of chlorpyrifos on vegetables
.
Article 36 of China's "Pesticide Management Regulations" stipulates that no unit or individual may produce, operate or use pesticides whose production or registration has been cancelled by the state
.
However, this chlorpyrifos pesticide, which has been deregistered on vegetables, is often used repeatedly by some retail vegetable farmers, and it usually takes five or six days to fight again
.
At around five o'clock in the afternoon, more vegetable farmers came to spray the vegetables.
They gathered around the water canal near the vegetable field and skillfully prepared the pesticides used that day
.
In order to enhance the control effect of pests and diseases, several kinds of pesticides are usually used for preparation
.
A vegetable farmer complained that the price of low-toxic pesticides is relatively high.
Compared with the use of highly-toxic pesticides, the cost of using drugs per acre of vegetables is several hundred yuan more
.
According to him, some local vegetable farmers choose to use highly toxic pesticides such as carbofuran in order to reduce costs, but he feels that this pesticide is more dangerous to use.

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Prohibited use of highly toxic pesticides It is understood that the carbofuran, also called carbofuran, that this vegetable farmer said is a highly toxic pesticide
.
A small bird foraging for a pill of carbofuran is fatal, and when the dead bird is eaten by other animals, it can cause a second poisoning to death
.
As early as 2002, the Ministry of Agriculture issued Announcement No.
199, clearly stipulating that carbofuran, or carbofuran, should not be used in vegetables
.
Now, more than ten years later, is this highly toxic pesticide banned by the state really still being used for vegetable cultivation? The reporter conducted an investigation on the entire retail vegetable growing area nearby and found a lot of discarded pesticide packages
.
In the fields of many vegetable farmers, various pesticide packages can be seen everywhere, many of which have the words "Carbofuran" or "Carbofuran" printed on them
.
The reporter also found some used "phorate" pesticide packaging bags from the vegetable plots of many retail households
.
Phorate, commonly known as 3911, is a highly toxic pesticide.
It was also banned from use on vegetables by the state as early as 2002
.
But so far in some local retail vegetable growing areas, phorate is still used to control soil insects
.
The vegetable farmer said frankly that growing vegetables in the open air mainly depends on the weather
.
Due to objective reasons such as local climate and soil, they have to fight against pests and diseases almost every day.
Therefore, no matter whether the pesticides are low-toxic or high-toxic, they have no choice in order to eradicate the pests and ensure the harvest
.
The reporter traveled to Guangdong many times to investigate some important vegetable production areas such as Zengcheng District and Conghua District in Guangzhou City, and found that in some retail growing areas in Conghua District, the use of high-toxic pesticides such as phorate and carbofuran to grow vegetables was suspected of illegal use.
The phenomenon also exists
.
In the five-month period that retail households have grown into blind areas for supervision, in addition to investigating some vegetable cultivation in Guangdong Province, the reporter has also conducted several investigations on some vegetable cultivation in Shandong, Henan, Hebei and other places, and found that they are in these areas.
The illegal use of pesticides also exists in some of the retail farming
.
In the vegetable cultivation areas of some retail vegetable farmers, various used pesticide packages can be seen everywhere, many of which are moderately toxic pesticides restricted by the state and banned highly toxic pesticides, such as chlorpyrifos, phorate, carbofuran ( Carbofuran), hydrocarbophos, isofenphos-methyl and so on
.
When investigating in these areas, the reporter also discovered a common phenomenon.
The focus of some local regulatory authorities is mainly on some large vegetable planting bases, while some retail vegetable planting areas have almost become blind areas for supervision
.
It turns out that in some vegetable growing areas in Guangdong, Shandong, Henan, Hebei and other places, some retail vegetable farmers sometimes illegally use pesticides on vegetables to prevent pests and diseases, and spray pesticides every three to five times during the planting period
.
In addition, some vegetable farmers illegally use some poisoning and highly toxic pesticides such as chlorpyrifos, phorate, carbofuran (carbofuran), hydrocarbophos, and isofenphos methyl in order to enhance the control effect
.
Vegetables grown under suspicion of abusing prohibited pesticides are sometimes sold directly to vegetable vendors without going through pesticide residue testing during the picking process
.
The trading market is also unsupervised.
Qixing Agricultural Products Market is located in Conghua District, Guangzhou City, which is a large-scale vegetable trading center in the area
.
Every day at two or three o'clock in the morning, some seasonal vegetables such as loofah, cowpea, bitter gourd, and choy sum grown by retail vegetable farmers will be transported here for sale
.
It is understood that in addition to supplying a small amount of these vegetables for local consumption, a large number of them are bought by vendors who specialize in purchasing, and they will be concentrated on loading and selling them to Shenzhen, Guangzhou and other places
.
The reporter watched the whole process of vegetable trading at Qixing Agricultural Products Trading Market from more than two in the morning to more than five in the morning, and found that apart from two staff members who were busy collecting market management fees from vegetable farmers and vendors, they did not see anything.
The inspectors conduct random inspections of pesticide residues on the vegetables sold
.
A security guard told reporters that they rarely conduct random inspections here
.
After daybreak, the reporter finally found a special agricultural product quality and safety testing room at Qixing Agricultural Products Market Management Office
.
No one in the test room, some test reagents have not been used
.
The reporter looked around and did not see any vegetable samples and related test data
.
The person in charge of the market admitted that the daily volume of vegetables in their market is as high as tens of thousands of kilograms.
Many of these vegetables have indeed not been randomly inspected for pesticide residues during the process of entering and leaving the market
.
Later, the reporter saw the same scene at the agricultural product market in Zengcheng District, Guangzhou
.
Qinfa Vegetable Wholesale Market is a large-scale vegetable trading and distributing center in Zengcheng District.
Its business model is very similar to that of Qixing Agricultural Products Market in Conghua District.
Specialized merchants also collect vegetables grown by local retail farmers and sort them according to vegetable varieties.
, Pack, and sell the whole vehicle to Guangzhou, Shenzhen and other places
.
During the entire process of vegetable purchase and trafficking, the reporter also did not see any inspectors
.
■Sound farmland to dinner table must be strictly checked.
According to research data released by the Nanjing Institute of Agricultural Mechanization of the Ministry of Agriculture, there are more than 50 million farmers engaged in commercial vegetable production in China, of which about 75% of vegetable farmers produce less than half a mu of land, 22.
6% The production scale of vegetable farmers is between half a mu and 5 acres, and only about 1.
4% of vegetable farmers have a production scale of more than 5 acres
.
This shows that small but scattered is an unavoidable reality in China's vegetable production
.
China's "Agricultural Product Quality and Safety Law" clearly stipulates that agricultural product wholesale markets should establish or entrust agricultural product quality safety testing agencies to conduct random inspections on the quality and safety of agricultural products sold in the market
.
If it is found that it does not meet the quality and safety standards of agricultural products, the seller shall be required to stop selling immediately and report to the competent authority
.
"The relevant departments should strengthen the monitoring and testing of large-scale bases.
It should be their own work
.
" Experts said that with the most rigorous standards, the most stringent supervision, the most severe penalties, and the most serious accountability, speed up the establishment of scientific and complete The food and drug safety governance system adheres to the equal emphasis on production and management, and strictly controls every line of defense from farmland to table, from laboratory to hospital.
This is not only the requirement of the party and the government, but also the expectation of consumers
.