Greenpeace Taiwan collected 60 vegetable and fruit products from major supermarkets and convenience store chains, including RT-Mart, Pxmart, Carrefour, Wellcome, A. Mart, Costco, 7-Eleven and FamilyMart and had them tested for pesticide residues. On Thursday 21 January, the organisation announced that 73 percent of the samples tested contained pesticide residue, 20 percent exhibited excessive pesticide levels and five products contained forbidden pesticides.
Prohibited chemicals were found in oranges from A. Mart; lettuce and jujubes from Carrefour; as well as passion fruit from A. Mart, the group said.
Green beans from Costco contained a fungicide residue 69 times higher than the legal limit, which stood out as the most serious violation among products with excessive residue levels, including oranges, green peppers, lettuce and passion fruits from A. Mart, spoon cabbages and arden lettuce from Carrefour, lemons from Pxmart, as well as grapes, lemons and Chinese cabbages from RT-Mart.
Only products collected from 7-Eleven and FamilyMart outlets showed no excessive residue, the organization said.
The test was a follow-up of a similar test conducted in October last year, which analyzed 69 products from eight retailers and found excessive residues in six products and prohibited pesticide in one product, it said.
Singling out Costco as the worst performing retailer in terms of transparency and food safety policy, Greenpeace project manager Lo Ko-jung said: “The solution to pesticide residue in food relies on retailers proposing specific measures to ban pesticide-containing products, but Costco ignores the consumer’s right to know because it has refused to disclose its pesticide management policy.”
Lo described Costco’s repeated claim that it followed both Taiwan’s and the US’ laws as an empty slogan, as the two countries differ largely in pesticide regulations, which would confuse the consumer and provide an excuse for the hypermarket chain to comply with standards it finds convenient.
Meanwhile, Carrefour has expanded its range of banned pesticides, from 40 percent to 70 percent of pesticides officially designated as highly toxic by the Council of Agriculture, she said.
Vegetables sold at 7-Eleven pose the least risk of pesticide exposure, as the retailer claims to sell only organic vegetables or crops produced during the transition period to organic production, she added.
Source: taipeitimes.com
