Pesticides found in 'organic' food
November 6, 2004
By Leanne Bell
Pesticide residues found in "organic" produce have prompted fresh concerns that shoppers are being misled.
The Food Safety Authority says shoppers should be aware that some food sold as "organic" might not be produced organically.
It took 41 samples of "organic" fruit, vegetables and wine from shops and found nine of them – 22 per cent – had pesticide residues.
Residues were found in lettuce, tomatoes and grapes. There was so much residue that they had probably been deliberately sprayed, the food safety watchdog said.
Executive director Andrew McKenzie said the food was not unsafe but it did not comply with the organic standard.
"The sample size is quite small – it's not like a real good scientific study – but it points that there's a bit of a problem."
Consumers could have confidence in food that was certified organic, Mr McKenzie said. "But if it's not certified, you're not quite sure what's going on.
"We never differentiated between certified and non-certified, we just went into shops where the consumer would logically think these things were organic."
The Commerce Commission, the enforcement agency for the Fair Trading Act, is assessing the information before it decides if it should investigate, a spokeswoman says.
Organic certifier BioGro New Zealand criticised the authority's test because it did not distinguish between certified and self-proclaimed organic foods.
Technical director Seager Mason said BioGro did more than 250 pesticide residue tests a year on produce and had not found any residues for five years.
"I'm sure that test is correct but it means nothing about organics if they have selected a product which has an invalid claim of organic on it."
He wanted the Government to beef up the Fair Trading Act to tighten organic labelling. "Or we may need some sort of law to protect that organic label."
Mr Mason advised shoppers to look for food that had organic certification labels as its producers had to meet stringent standards and were regularly audited.
Commonsense Organics managing director Jim Kebbell, chairman of the committee that developed an organics standard for New Zealand, called for the Government to better police the industry. "There will be no end of cheating and fraud till people who are not certified are disqualified from using the word organic," he said.
"We want the Government to regulate in a way that if you're going to call stuff organic, it needs to be certified organic."
Consumers' Institute chief executive David Russell said the authority's test showed that shoppers could never be certain they were buying food truly free of pesticide residues.
Source:www.stuff.co.nz
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