Big brother is watching

It is a big year for us in the strawberry business as during 2004 strawberries will be included in the government's routine pesticide surveillance scheme. the scheme looks at a wide range of products and is both the government's and the food industries means of evaluating how much if any of the pesticide remains in food offered to consumers.

On my first trip to California, a few years back I had one of those conversations that started "and what do you do for a living?" "I'm in the strawberry business" was my reply. This young Californian introduced me to a new phrase - "I am selective in what fruit and vegetables I buy as I know some as 'pesticide intensive'."

The huge positive to our industry is our offer to consumers of tasty product 52 weeks of the year. AND a big bonus is that eating a diet with plenty of fruit and vegetables is undeniably good for our health. Pesticide use is one of a number of topics that has helped us achieve high levels of product quality currently on offer. As a diet rich in fruit and vegetables is so good for health and well-being, individuals or groups who scare-monger about issues such as pesticide use are destined to do the whole population a disservice. A mis-representation of information relating to the use of the human MMR vaccine looks likely to have put at risk many people.

We have fortunately moved a long way since the days when I started in this industry and was expected to use lead and mercury based products, which certainly had proven health concerns to spray operators if not the consuming public. In the same time frame the restriction and removal of persistent pesticides such as DDT and Endrin appear to have benefits on some wildlife. So I suppose the lobbying groups in the 1960's and 70's had their detractors but the majority view now may well be that what they were saying was correct.

For many of us we see it as something of a duty to provide fruit and vegetable products and something we take pride in being able to achieve. It is for the most of us an aim to reduce the amount of pesticide resideue down to zero. I remember the doom merchants saying if we lost mercurious fungicides we would nto be able to produce fruit crops in britain. So today I am quietly optimistic that if as an industry we take ownership of the issue of zero pesticide residues we can achieve that goal.

Food concerns are an issue that governments have to get involved with. Our own government's Pesticide Safety Division from experience is probably the most active and most balanced in all of Europe. While most of the people we meet on farms dealing with agrochemicals are well informed and highly useful to us as growers, the major agrochemical companies seem to lag behind the industry they sell to.

So we must work as an industry across the national borders to develop the frui products we grow. Develop our strategies for pest and disease control in conjunction with other national industries. A thrip in Spain might only be a distant cousin of one in the UK but eventually we end up using the same insecticides in Span as we do in the UK, so lets spread the costs of research and development. As the majority of our production is now covered we probably have a good scope to further develop biological control. Unfortunately unlike the glasshouse industry we missed out on this development work funding in the 1970's, but collaboration across the industry now would show benefit in future years.

Our residue analysis data carried out across the whole spectrum of our berry supply initiatives we are not "pesticide intensive" and the more we check the more we are convinced. At the same time the more nutritionalist look at our products the more enthusiastic they become on the benefits they have on health - but then a good news story is never that interesting, is it?

Winter 2003