The "pain" of pesticide management in big agricultural countries

Recently, more than 10 people in Qingdao City of Shandong Province have been buzzing with vomiting dizziness after eating watermelons. However, the official “Qualification of Pesticide Residue Exceeded the Standard” issued by the Qingdao Municipal Government has not ended the matter. At the same time, another news sparked social concern. The newly revised “Food Safety Law” states: “The state encourages and supports the use of highly effective, low-toxic, low-residue pesticides, promotes the development and application of highly toxic and highly toxic pesticide alternatives, and accelerates the elimination of highly toxic and highly toxic pesticides. Poisonous pesticides should not be used for vegetables, fruits, tea leaves and Chinese herbal medicines."

On the one hand, the country is constantly “adding yards” to food safety and pesticide management. On the one hand, it is an excessive occurrence of excessive pesticide residues. Is pesticide really so scary? Can highly toxic and highly toxic pesticides be completely banned? Behind the excessive incidents of pesticide residues in the end hidden in the management of China's agricultural country how the "pain"?

Poisonous, highly toxic pesticides account for less than 3%

Compared with some people who talked about highly toxic and highly toxic pesticides, Cao Chengyu, deputy secretary-general of the China Pesticide Industry Association, believes that there is still a need for highly toxic and highly toxic pesticides. It is not realistic to completely disable them.

“The use of highly toxic and highly toxic pesticides has made great contributions to China’s agricultural production and food security. If it is completely banned, once a large area of ​​pests and diseases are encountered, it is likely to have a fatal impact on agricultural production.” Although the State encourages drama, The research, development and application of toxic and highly toxic pesticide alternative products, but Cao Chengyu frankly stated that this work is very difficult to carry out.

“In the protection of some diseases and insect pests, the ideal substitute has not yet appeared, and it is time-consuming and costly to develop new varieties of pesticides. The general enterprises cannot afford it at all.” Cao Chengyu believes that highly toxic and highly toxic pesticides cannot be used, but they must be strictly enforced. Use as prescribed.

China's "Regulations on the Administration of Pesticides" and "Implementation Measures for Pesticide Management Regulations" clearly stipulate that highly toxic and highly toxic pesticides must not be used for the prevention and control of sanitary pests, and must not be used for vegetables, fruits, tea, and Chinese herbal medicines.

“Some highly toxic and highly toxic pesticides are limited in use. For example, organophosphorus pesticides are highly toxic pesticides and are not allowed to be used for vegetables and fruits, but they can be used as seed coating agents to protect plant seeds. , as long as the spraying method does not use spraying on the line.” Department of Applied Chemistry, China Agricultural University, an unnamed professor engaged in the study of pesticide formulations explained.

China implements a pesticide registration system and a pesticide production permit system. The production of pesticides and imported pesticides must be registered. For highly toxic and highly toxic pesticides, the Ministry of Agriculture has also taken some special measures, such as stopping new registrations and production permits, not adding new production sites, and not expanding production capacity. In some places, according to local conditions, more stringent management regulations have been introduced. For example, Hainan Province prohibits the use of all highly toxic and highly toxic pesticides.

In the management of pesticide sales, the Ministry of Agriculture requires that “high-toxic pesticide business units should be approved and standardized, purchase real-name pesticides, record the flow of information, and make fixed-point management dynamics” and establish “100% information for high-toxicity pesticides that can be inquired and 100% for traceability. , 100% quality assurance "high-toxic pesticide fixed-point operating system. In 2014, it also implemented demonstration projects for high-toxicity pesticide fixed-point operations in five provinces, such as Hebei, in order to explore the establishment of a safe highly toxic and highly toxic pesticide management system. "According to the statistics from the National Bureau of Statistics, China now produces 3 million tons of pesticides each year, of which the production of highly toxic and highly toxic products accounts for only 3% of the total," said Cao Chengyu.

“Very toxic and highly toxic pesticide products are not our direction of development.” According to Cui Ya, vice chairman of the Party Committee of Jiangsu Kesheng Group Co., Ltd., large pesticide manufacturers will not choose such products as their own development direction. Only small-scale, survival-oriented small businesses will produce such products. "In view of the current necessity of highly toxic and highly toxic pesticides, it is still necessary to target some regular enterprises for production. This will require more supervision of such enterprises," said Cui Ya.

"High residue" is more harmful

China's pesticide toxicity grading standards are divided into three categories: oral, transdermal, and inhalation. The pesticides are classified as highly toxic, highly toxic, moderately toxic, lowly toxic, and slightly toxic. The median lethal dose of highly toxic pesticides is less than or equal to 5 mg/Kg, and the median lethal dose of highly toxic pesticides is between 5 mg/Kg and 50 mg/Kg.

However, the toxicity of pesticides is only an indicator of its harm, and there is one indicator that must be concerned. Pesticides are chemicals that degrade and move in nature. This time is called the half-life. If the half-life of the pesticide exceeds a certain time, the pesticide is considered as high residue. Therefore, safety intervals are crucial in the use of pesticides. The safety interval is the number of days between the time when the pesticide was last applied and when the agricultural product is harvested. It can be ensured that the pesticide residue of the harvested agricultural product will not exceed the allowable standard set by the state. It is worth noting that the safety intervals for different pesticides or the same pesticide applied to different crops are different. It is necessary to ensure that agricultural products are harvested after the safety interval of pesticides is used, so as to prevent excessive pesticide residue in agricultural products. For example, the safety interval of abamectin for citrus is 14 days, while the safety interval for cucumber is 2 days.

“If highly toxic and highly toxic pesticides break down quickly in nature, it will not lead to high residues; while some low-toxicity pesticides will take longer to decompose, and if it does not reach a safe interval, it will be harvested and sold. , May cause food safety problems due to excessive pesticide residues,” said the above professor at China Agricultural University.

In other words, the “high residue” of pesticides has a greater impact than “very toxic” and “highly toxic”.

Difficulties in the use of supervision

There are frequent food safety incidents caused by excessive pesticide residues. Many people in the industry believe that the use of pesticides is a bottleneck of supervision.

China's agricultural production has a low degree of organization and a variety of planting patterns. The phenomenon of “misuse, use, and non-use of pesticides” is relatively common. The quality and safety events of agricultural products and human and animal poisoning accidents caused by these violations have occurred from time to time.

“In the use of pesticides, the safety interval is a strictly obedient use rule. However, some farmers do not comply with this rule and are eager to harvest at safety intervals. The residual pesticides on fruits and vegetables are likely to exceed the national minimum standards. "Cao Chengyu said.

The professor from China Agricultural University had conducted a comparative analysis of pesticide management systems in other countries and regions of the world. He believes that China's laws and regulations on pesticides are relatively sound, but the supervision on the use of pesticides still lags behind developed countries.

The professor said that the economically developed regions such as North America and Europe pay special attention to the management of the use of pesticides, and the monitoring of pesticide hazards is also very comprehensive. However, these studies have not been carried out in China.

Cao Chengyu also believes that the current status of agricultural production in China determines the importance of raising farmers' awareness of safe drug use and strengthening the supervision of the use of pesticides. “Food safety incidents caused by excessive pesticide residues are not covered by pesticides but in the use of pesticides. Now that large numbers of large-scale growers in rural areas are growing, it should be good news for the scientific and standardized use of pesticides. In short, pesticides are The 'double-edged sword' can be used to 'match the enemy'. If it is not used properly, it is 'suicide'."