In the Agro-pontine, the poisoning of the environment, populations and fruit and vegetables continues. Illegal pesticides on fields and illegal landfills. It is time for Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte to take action on the ‘public official controls’ decree scheme, which is to be redone from scratch.
The Agro Pontino of poisons
Marco Omizzolo, a journalist and sociologist committed to environmental protection, filed a complaint with the Public Prosecutor’s Office in September 2019. Following a thorough investigation-published with Angelo Mastrandrea, in La Repubblica’s Friday-which highlights a serious and widespread situation of illegality in the agricultural supply chains of Agro Pontino. With the help of a laborer who has worked in the fields for years, the catalog of banned agrotoxics but widely used in this area of the Lazio Region is unraveled.
‘They range from Afalon, an herbicide withdrawn by the Ministry of Health on June 3, 2017, to Cycocel, a growth regulator banned since 2012, to Adrop, a plant growth regulator that anticipates the ripening time of fruits and vegetables banned since as early as 2009.’
Workers and laborers are continually exposed to the poisonous effects of the substances that inevitably remain in the fruit and vegetables distributed throughout Italy. Predominantly in the channels of neighborhood markets and traditional distribution, which escape the – usually strict – controls of the large-scale retail trade (GDO).
Illegality is systematic. There have been several cases of worker intoxication, from exhalations of toxic fumes, and even consumer reports of products containing tablets of banned substances that were still solid and not fully dissolved. Adding to the abuse of pesticides and other banned agrotoxics is the failure to adhere to the so-called deficiency times, or safety intervals. That is, the minimum periods that must elapse between the day of treatment and the date of harvest of agricultural products. The chemical safety of food is at risk in a criminal agricultural supply chain that feeds well on the sole business of agromafias.
Agromafias in the lands of the fires.
The carnage is consumed with the burning of used bins and bottles. Soils already polluted by banned pesticides and herbicides-which percolate into surface waters, eventually reaching groundwater-are thus ‘fined’ with toxic waste. Illegal landfills in the Lands of the Fires that like the plague are running rampant, from Campania to Lazio to the northern part of the Peninsula. And the turnover of agromafias is growing year by year, +12.4 percent in 2018, with an estimated total of 24.5 billion euros by default. (1)
The illicit agrotoxin trade is there for all to see. Amazon, as we in turn have reported, smuggles them regardless of legal requirements (authorization of substances in countries of destination, certificates of authority to sell and purchase). Organized crime thrives online and offline, thanks in part to the sale of illegal agrotoxics.
These are real chemical weapons, made with active ingredients banned in countries of the Global North but still widespread in those where legislation is lacking. Like paraquat Made in Europe, or the myriad of agrotoxics licensed in Jair Bolsonaro’s Brazil.
Illegal agrotoxics are one of the ten most profitable businesses for organized crime, according to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). (2) So widespread that it covers 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
Marco Omizzolo and Angelo Mastrandrea’s investigation spurred two questions to Parliament. At the Chamber of Deputies by Hon. Stefania Cenni, vice chairwoman of the Agriculture Committee. And in the Senate, by its former president Pietro Grasso. Legambiente, in turn, has asked newly appointed Agriculture Minister Teresa Bellanova to activate an investigation into illegal trafficking of illegal pesticides in the Bel Paese.
It is incumbent to activate an extraordinary program of reinforced controls on the fruit and vegetable supply chain, starting with Agro Pontino. It is worth noting in this regard that the competencies to controls on so-called agrochemicals 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 politician distracted elsewhere. Instead, inspections, soil coring and analysis should be carried out, ‘to identify those responsible for these very serious criminal practices, by which illicit profits are accumulated and the health of citizens is threatened.’
Legambiente, on closer inspection, had already denounced the escalation of crimes in the agrifood supply chains in its latest report ‘Ecomafia’. Where there was an estimated formidable growth in agromafia business (+35.6 percent, 2018 over 2017). The admittedly large number of infringement findings-44,795 in 2018, or 123 per day-are clearly not enough to ensure the safety of supply chains in areas controlled by the underworld.
Official controls in Italy, decrees to be redone
The regulation of official public controls on agrifood supply chains and related sanctions is under current reform, in Italy. For the due update against the new rules defined in Europe by Regulation (EU) No. 2017/625. However, the draft legislative decree now being discussed by the ministries involved (Health, Agriculture and Economic Development) is completely unfit for purpose, as noted above.
The Presidency of the Council of Ministers must intervene, once and for all, to rectify the unacceptable ‘encroachment’ of the Department of Agriculture on areas under the purview of the Health Administration. Therefore, it is necessary to expressly give the Ministry of Health the role and powers of coordinating any and all official public control activities on agribusiness and livestock supply chains. In compliance with criteria that were established at the time as early as 15 years ago as part of the Hygiene Package. (4)
The draft decree that is supposed to reform the national framework on controls and penalties, paradoxically, ignores precisely the main new features of reg. EU 2017/625. It fails to introduce the new notions of ‘hazard’ and ‘risk,’ which are crucial precisely because they consider ‘animal or planthealth, on animal welfare, or on the environment,’ in addition to food and feed safety. (5) And this is the key to taking drastic measures against all those who spray fields with outlawed agrotoxics.
The original sin of the draft legislative decree-In blatant conflict with the European regulation to be implemented and the goals to be achieved-is therefore twofold:
– it fails to recognize that the Ministry of Health should coordinate all official public controls to be performed in Italy, in line with its role as the national point of contact in Brussels. It is worth mentioning, in this regard, that official public controls on the use of plant protection products already fall under the responsibility of the health administration,
– indulges in referring only to direct risks to human health as conditions for activating the dutiful alert procedures and sanctions that must be so severe and effective as to discourage illegality. (6)
Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte must show further courage to solve problems that have been dragging on for a couple of decades now but just now threaten to corrupt the credibility of the Italian food supply chain.
Dario Dongo and Giulia Torre
Notes
(1) Cf. Eurispes Institute, 6th report on Agromafie.
(2) OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe). Combating pesticide counterfeiting and smuggling. See also https://www.cambialaterra.it/2017/10/pesticidi-taroccati/
(3) EUIPO (2017). Economic cost of intellectual property rights infringement in the pesticide industry
(4) See reg. EC 882/04, on official controls to verify compliance with feed and food law, animal health and animal welfare rules
For more details see the free ebook Food Safety, Mandatory Rules and Voluntary Standards, at https://www.greatitalianfoodtrade.it/libri/sicurezza-alimentare-regole-cogenti-e-norme-volontarie-il-nuovo-libro-di-dario-dongo
(5) Reg. EU 2017/625, on official controls and other official activities carried out to ensure the enforcement of food and feed law, animal health and animal welfare rules, plant health and plant protection products, Art. 3 para. 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.
