Are pesticide residue standards safe?

Interlocutor:

Gu Baogen, Deputy Director of the Agricultural products quality and Safety Center of the Ministry of Agriculture

Liu Xingang, researcher, Institute of Plant Protection, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences

Wang Yongjiang, Director of Information Station of Agricultural Bureau of Yongqing County, Hebei Province

Bei Cha Kou Cun, Yongqing Town, Yongqing County, Hebei Province, Zhang Jianyan

Moderator:

Our reporter Feng Hua and Zhao Yongping

Is it all right for ⒈ not to use pesticides?

The loss of uncontrolled diseases and insect pests is nearly 40%. Rational drug use does not affect quality and safety, and the qualified rate of vegetable and fruit sampling inspection is more than 96%.

Yongqing County, Hebei Province, vegetable planting area of 360000 mu, is one of the supply of Beijing and Tianjin vegetable basket base, the vegetable farmers here do not give medicine, how to use medicine?

Zhang Jianyan: my family has 5 greenhouses, 2 greenhouses for cucumbers and 3 sheds for melons. Compared with open field planting, melons and vegetables in greenhouse have less insect pests, mainly killing fungicides to prevent diseases. Take the spring cucumber said, planted in December, because of the application of bacterial fertilizer, did not begin to administer medicine until February into the fruit-setting period. The fungicides I use are Yi Bao, Chlorothalonil, carbendazim, etc., every 10 days or so, plus acaricide, four or five times from seed to harvest, and the drug must be stopped about 10 days before picking. These days, cucumber seedlings after planting wax gourd, wax gourd disease-resistant, basically can not be drugged. But every year to August, September, the high incidence of diseases and insect pests must be stuffy shed, nothing to the shed high-temperature sterilization, ready for the coming year.

Wang Yongjiang: farmers like Zhang Jianyan are ordinary farmers in Yongqing. After 20 or 30 years of exploration and promotion, vegetable farmers have basically mastered the technology of vegetable safety production. First, rely on physical control, such as greenhouse before planting, fumigation shed sterilization, application of bacterial fertilizer, wrong season, stubble disease prevention. Second, it depends on the safe use of drugs, such as several pesticides used in Zhang Jianyan greenhouse are slightly toxic and can be decomposed before the products are put on the market.

Are the melons and vegetables we eat covered with medicine?

Gu Baogen: this statement is not accurate. In the process of crop growth, affected by climate and other factors, diseases and insect pests are bound to occur, and pesticide control is needed to ensure yield. In theory, there will be residues after the use of drugs, but residues do not mean that they are not safe, as long as they are within the scope of national standards, they are safe and secure.

Is it all right not to use pesticides?

Zhang Jianyan: if the vegetables are not treated with medicine, once the disease can not be cured. A few years ago, the villagers' cucumbers got "horse racing dry", which is a kind of gray mildew. In less than three days, all the leaves in a shed fell off and there was no harvest at all.

Liu Xingang: at present, pesticides are still indispensable means of production for agricultural production in all countries in the world, including developed countries. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, without pest control, the rate of crop loss is as high as 37%.

Is the quality of melons and vegetables on the market assured?

Gu Baogen: the quality and safety of agricultural products is a big deal. Monitoring data show that in recent years, the qualified rate of sampling inspection of vegetables and fruits across the country has been stable at more than 96%, and is increasing year by year. Generally speaking, the quality of agricultural products in our country is reliable and the safety of consumption is guaranteed.

Is the ⒉ Pesticide residue Standard safe?

At present, most of them are bionic pesticides with reduced toxicity and controllable risk. Some pesticides have the same risk as salt, and national standards leave enough safety space.

Some people change color at the mention of pesticides. Are pesticides "poisons"?

Gu Baogen: it is widely recognized that pesticides are toxic. But now pesticides are very different from those in the past. First, the chemical composition and structure of pesticides have changed greatly, in the past, they were mostly chlorine and arsenic and organophosphorus pesticides, but now they are mostly bionic pesticides, and their toxicity is greatly reduced; second, the action mechanism of pesticides is also different, and they were mostly nerve agents in the past. affect the nervous system, easy to cause human poisoning. At present, there are new pesticides that affect the energy metabolism and material synthesis of insects, which have little impact on people; third, the effect is good and the dosage is small. At present, the proportion of products containing highly toxic pesticides in China is less than 2%, and the proportion of low-toxic and slightly toxic pesticide products is more than 75%. The general trend is that the toxicity of pesticides is decreasing, the usage is decreasing, and the safety risk is decreasing.

Liu Xingang: according to China's Pesticide regulations, there are five levels of pesticide toxicity: micro-toxic, low-toxic, medium-toxic, high-toxic and highly toxic. Let's make a comparison. The LD50 of salt we eat every day is 3750 mg / kg in animal experiments, while the LD50 of many pesticides is more than 5000 mg / kg. The larger the LD50 data, the smaller the toxicity. Therefore, the safety risk of these pesticides is equivalent to that of salt, and pesticides cannot be synonymous with poisons.

How is the pesticide residue standard established?

Gu Baogen: the pesticide residue standard is the safety value calculated by risk assessment technology based on the toxicity of pesticides, pesticide residues in agricultural products, our food consumption structure, and so on. The standard is based on the greatest possible risk, that is, the maximum amount of agricultural products and the amount one is likely to eat every day of one's life. On this basis, taking into account species differences and the safety of pregnant women and children, the safety factor is increased by 100 times, so the standard is very strict, and there is a large insurance factor. Therefore, pesticide residues in agricultural products are safe as long as they are within the scope of national standards. At present, China has formulated 3650 pesticide residue standards, involving 387 kinds of pesticides and 284 kinds of food, covering almost all major agricultural products, such as vegetables, fruits, grains and so on.

Can the one-household mode of production adhere to safety standards?

Wang Yongjiang: now growing vegetables is a professional village or even a township, and there is only a market on a large scale. In the specialized villages of vegetable production, farmers' cooperative organizations are generally set up to jointly guarantee households and farmers to supervise each other. In addition, the county has formulated technical operation rules for harmless production of 13 kinds of vegetables, with one volume for each household, with 128county and township vegetable technicians and more than 1100 peasant technicians, who are active in the field all the year round to promote the scientific and standardized quality and safety of vegetables.

Zhang Jianyan: for vegetable farmers, the use of highly toxic and highly toxic pesticides is tantamount to breaking the road to wealth. If something goes wrong, you can't hold your head up in front of the whole village. In addition, the three agricultural distribution shops in the village have banned highly toxic pesticides, and you can't buy them even if you want to.

Gu Baogen: at present, there are 12 kinds of highly toxic and highly toxic pesticides in China that are allowed to be produced, sold and used. Why not ban it completely? Because some underground pests, storage pests and other diseases and pests control can not be separated from high-toxic, highly toxic pesticides. According to regulations, highly toxic and highly toxic pesticides are not allowed to be used in vegetables, melons and fruits, tea and Chinese herbal medicines. Since 2010, the Ministry of Agriculture has carried out designated management and traceability management of highly toxic pesticides nationwide, strictly checking from the source.

⒊ market supervision is not in place?

The whole supervision chain from field to table has been formed, and 3332 quality inspection institutions have achieved surface coverage.

From the field to the dining table, will the market test "leak the net"?

Zhang Jianyan: my family's food mainly has three sales channels: one is Xinyuan Sunshine Company, which goes to the high-end consumer market; one is Huimin vegetable Company, which supplies Beijing supermarkets; and the other is a fixed dealer. The first two channels are tested more strictly, each batch of vegetables should be sampled, and dealers generally do not test when they receive food. In order to ensure the quality, the cooperatives in the village are also equipped with simple testing equipment to check the villagers' greenhouses from time to time.

Wang Yongjiang: as a pollution-free vegetable base, vegetable testing centers and six township-level testing stations have been set up in the county. 25000 samples have been tested in the past three years, and the self-test coverage rate has reached more than 90%.

Gu Baogen: the quality and safety of agricultural products are produced and managed. China has formed a whole process supervision chain, from fields, pig pens and fish ponds to the purchase, storage and transportation of agricultural products. A set of quality and safety monitoring systems for key agricultural products and agricultural inputs have been established and improved, including routine monitoring, special monitoring, and supervision and spot checks. The state has invested in the construction of 2553 quality inspection institutions in ministries, provinces, prefectures (cities) and counties, together with the agricultural products quality inspection institutions built by various localities themselves, the total number has reached 3332, and the number of testing personnel has reached 35000. It should be said that our country has spent a lot of efforts on the supervision of the quality and safety of agricultural products, but due to the wide scope of agricultural production and long industrial chain, there are inevitably some weak links.

In the next step, the Ministry of Agriculture will grasp agricultural standardized production and whole-process control on the one hand, and law enforcement supervision and special rectification on the other. In terms of pesticide supervision, this year, we will continue to carry out a special crackdown on "pesticides and their use", strictly investigate and deal with illegal acts in production and operation, such as the illegal addition of highly toxic pesticides, fake and shoddy pesticides, and the application and fraudulent use of registration certificates. We will implement the system of fixed-point management and real-name purchase of highly toxic pesticides, and carry out pilot projects of electronic traceability codes for pesticide products.

How to achieve zero growth of ⒋ pesticides?

Support specialized service organizations, carry out unified prevention and control on a large scale, improve the utilization rate of pesticides and reduce drug consumption

What is the overall situation of pesticide use in the country?

Liu Xingang: due to climate change and changes in cultivation methods, crop diseases and insect pests occur frequently, frequently and repeatedly, coupled with backward pesticide application equipment, inadequate popularization of application technology, and so on. At present, there is still a phenomenon of excessive use of pesticides, and the problem of "running and dripping" is serious. Data show that the average utilization rate of pesticides in China is only about 35%, which is 10 to 20 percentage points lower than that of developed countries.

Gu Baogen: it is urgent to use drugs scientifically and reduce the amount of pesticides. This year, the Ministry of Agriculture has formulated an action plan for zero growth of pesticide use, and the utilization rate of pesticides in major crops will reach more than 40% by 2020, focusing on "control, replacement, refinement and unification", and strive to achieve "three reductions and one mention": first, to reduce the frequency of pesticide application. the application of green prevention and control technologies such as agricultural control, biological control and physical control; the second is to reduce the dosage and use drugs in critical periods, symptomatic and appropriate amounts. The third is to reduce the loss of pesticides, to develop and apply modern plant protection machinery to replace the backward machinery, and the fourth is to improve the effect of prevention and control and carry out professional unified prevention and control on a large scale.

From a practical point of view, this technical route is feasible. In the demonstration zones promoted by the integration of professional unified defense rule and green prevention and control last year, the general field crops reduced the use of drugs by 1 Mel twice per season, horticultural crops reduced the use of drugs by 3 Mel 4 times per season, and the use of chemical pesticides was reduced by 20% and 30%. Not only does it not affect the effect of prevention and control, but also can increase production by more than 8% per mu, save cost and increase efficiency by more than 150 yuan.

Is it easy to popularize green prevention and control and bio-pesticides?

Wang Yongjiang: at present, most of the vegetable production in Yongqing is intensive farming, which is still far behind organic agriculture and modern agriculture. Biological pesticides, green prevention and control investment is high, the technical threshold is also high, large-scale growers use more, most ordinary farmers can not accept it in a short time.

Liu Xingang: there are more than 3700 registered bio-pesticide products in China, accounting for about 12% of the total pesticide products. Compared with traditional chemical pesticides, biological pesticides are relatively safe for human and animal health and environment. In terms of market price there is no significant difference between biological pesticides and chemical pesticides. However, due to the shortcomings of biological pesticides, such as relatively low control effect and slow effect, the enthusiasm of farmers is not high. With the development of large-scale agricultural production, unified prevention and control service, and the deepening of agricultural technology training, this problem will be solved step by step.