In the Agro-Pontine area, the poisoning of the environment, populations and fruit and vegetables continues. Illegal pesticides on the fields and illegal landfills. It is time for the premier Giuseppe Conte intervenes on the draft 'official public controls' decree, to be redone scratch.
The Agro Pontino of poisons
Marco Omizzolo, journalist and sociologist committed to environmental protection, presented a complaint to the Public Prosecutor's Office in September 2019. Following an accurate investigation - published together with Angelo Mastrandrea, on the Friday of La Repubblica - which highlights a serious and widespread situation of illegality in the agricultural supply chains of the Agro Pontino. Thanks to the help of a farmhand who has been working in the fields for years, the catalog of prohibited but widely spread agro-toxicants in this area of the Lazio Region is revealed.
'It goes from the Afalon, a herbicide revoked by the Ministry of Health on 3 June 2017, to Cycocel, a growth regulator banned since 2012, to Adrop, a plant growth regulator that anticipates the ripening times of fruit and vegetables, even banned since 2009. '
Workers and laborers are continuously exposed to poisonous effects of the substances that inevitably remain in fruit and vegetables distributed throughout Italy. Mainly on the local market channels and traditional distribution, which escape the generally rigorous controls of the large-scale retail trade.
The illegality it is systematic. There have been several cases of intoxication of workers, from fumes of toxic fumes, and even reports from consumers on products that contained tablets of prohibited substances that were still solid and not completely dissolved. To the abuse of pesticides and other prohibited agrotoxicants is added the failure to comply with the so-called deficiency times, or safety intervals. That is to say, the minimum periods that must elapse between the day of treatment and the date of harvesting of agricultural products. The chemical safety of food is at risk, in a criminal agricultural chain that nourishes only the business of agromafies well.
Agromafies in the land of fires
The massacre it is consumed with the pyres of the used cans and bottles. Soils already polluted by prohibited pesticides and herbicides - which leach into surface waters, reaching the groundwater - they are thus 'amended' with toxic waste. Illegal landfills in the land of fires that like the plague spread, from Campania to Lazio up to the north of the Peninsula. And the turnover of agromafies grows year by year, + 12,4% in 2018, for a total estimated to be below 24,5 billion euros. (1)
Illicit trafficking in agrotoxins is there for all to see. Amazon, as we in turn have denounced, smuggles them regardless of legal requirements (authorization of substances in the countries of destination, certificates of qualification for sale and purchase). Organized crime thrives online and offline, thanks in part to the sale of illegal agrotoxins.
These are chemical weapons real, made with active ingredients prohibited in the countries of the North of the world but still widespread in those where the legislation is lacking. As the paraquat Made in Europe, or the myriad of agrotoxics authorized in Brazil by Jair Bolsonaro.
Illegal agrotoxics I'm one of ten business more profitable for organized crime, according to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). (2) So widespread that it affects about a quarter of the pesticides used on the entire planet. A global threat - to human and animal health, as well as ecosystems - totally out of control. (3)
Agro Pontino, the first reactions
The survey by Marco Omizzolo and Angelo Mastrandrea stimulated two questions to Parliament. In the Chamber of Deputies by the Hon Stefania Cenni, vice president of the Agriculture Commission. And in the Senate, by its former president Pietro Grasso. Legambiente, in turn, asked the new Minister of Agriculture Teresa Bellanova to launch an investigation into the illegal trafficking of illegal pesticides in the Bel Paese.
It is a must activate an extraordinary program of reinforced controls on the fruit and vegetable supply chain, starting from Agro Pontino. In this regard, it is useful to underline that the competences for the controls on the so-called agropharmaceuticals fall under the health administration. And it is regrettable to note the silence of the Lazio Region, which also has concurrent jurisdiction but is governed by a distracted politician elsewhere. Instead, inspections, soil cores and analyzes must be carried out, 'to identify those responsible for these very serious criminal practices, with which illicit profits are accumulated and the health of citizens is threatened'.
Legambiente, in hindsight, he had already denounced the escalation of crimes in the agri-food supply chains in his latest report 'Ecomafia'. Where a formidable growth in the business of agromafies has been estimated (+ 35,6%, 2018 on 2017). The numerous investigations of infringements - 44.795 in 2018, equal to 123 per day - are evidently not enough to guarantee the safety of supply chains in areas controlled by the underworld.
Official controls in Italy, decrees to be redone
The discipline of controls public officials on agri-food chains and related sanctions is currently undergoing reform in Italy. For the necessary updating with respect to the new rules defined in Europe with regulation (EU) no. 2017/625. The legislative decree scheme now under discussion in the ministries involved (Health, Agriculture and Economic Development) is, however, completely unsuitable for the purposes, as has already been pointed out.
The Presidency of the Council ministers must intervene, once and for all, to heal the unacceptable 'field invasion' of the Department of Agricultural Policies on areas of competence of the Health Administration. Therefore, the role and powers of coordination of any and all official public control activities on the agri-food and livestock supply chains must be explicitly attributed to the Ministry of Health. In compliance with criteria that were established at the time already fifteen years ago, as part of the Hygiene Package. (4)
The draft decree which should reform the national discipline on controls and sanctions, paradoxically, ignores precisely the main news of the reg. EU 2017/625. It fails to introduce the new notions of 'danger' and 'risk', which are crucial precisely because they consider health 'animal or plant, animal welfare or the environment', in addition to food and feed safety. (5) And this is the key to taking drastic measures against all those who spray the fields with outlawed agrotoxins.
Original sin of the draft legislative decree - In clear contrast with the European regulation to be implemented and the objectives to be achieved - is therefore twofold:
- is omitted to recognize that the Ministry of Health should coordinate all official public controls to be performed in Italy, in line with its role as national contact point in Brussels. In this regard, it is worth remembering that official public controls on the use of pesticides already fall within the competence of the health administration,
- indulges in referring solely to direct risks to human health as conditions for activating the necessary alert procedures and sanctions that must be so serious and effective as to discourage illegality. (6)
The President of the Council Giuseppe Conte must give further proof of courage to solve problems that have been dragging on for a couple of decades now but right now risk corrupting the credibility of the Italian food supply chain.
Dario Dongo and Giulia Torre
Footnotes
(1) See Eurispes Institute, 6th report on Agromafies
(2) OSCE (Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe). Fight against counterfeiting and smuggling of pesticides. See also https://www.cambialaterra.it/2017/10/pesticidi-taroccati/
(3) EUIPO (2017). Economic cost of IPR infringement in the pesticide sector
(4) See reg. CE 882/04, on official controls aimed at verifying compliance with feed and food law and with animal health and welfare rules
For further information see the free ebook Food safety, mandatory rules and voluntary standards, its https://www.greatitalianfoodtrade.it/libri/sicurezza-alimentare-regole-cogenti-e-norme-volontarie-il-nuovo-libro-di-dario-dongo
(5) EU Reg. 2017/625, on official controls and other official activities carried out to ensure the application of legislation on food and feed, rules on animal health and welfare, plant health and plant protection products, art. 3 paragraphs 23 and 24
(6) See reg. EU 2017/625, art. 139
Dario Dongo, lawyer and journalist, PhD in international food law, founder of WIISE (FARE - GIFT - Food Times) and Égalité.
Graduated in law, master in European Food Law, she deals with agro-food, veterinary and agricultural legislation. She is a PhD in agrisystem.
