03.10.2022
A skewed view of what safe foods are
Dear readers,
There are some things that we know, but that knowledge doesn’t always help. People aren’t always good at assessing risk. We suffer from a fear of flying – and yet don’t wear a helmet when cycling. We’re suspicious of chemical agents, while simultaneously underestimating the risks posed by nature. Biases such as these also affect our perception of crop protection products. What’s more, unscrupulous critics often actively promote such misapprehensions. Michael Siegrist, Professor of Consumer Behavior at ETH Zurich, conducts research into these types of pitfalls. Chemical agents, even in the tiniest quantities, are regarded as hazardous – without any justification whatsoever. The general public tend to completely disregard the dose involved. We simply ignore the basic principle expressed by Paracelsus – namely that the dose makes the poison. At the same time, we are convinced that natural products are healthy. We forget that, just 150 years ago, many people died as a result of eating rotten cereals.
What we need to realize is a simple concept – that “natural” is not a synonym for safe, healthy food. In actual fact, organic products – which are often promoted by retailers as being particularly healthy – are recalled more frequently than their conventionally produced counterparts. As recently reported by the “Sonntagszeitung” newspaper, these recalls are due to toxic substances from plants or mold that are harvested along with the product itself. These sorts of risks to food safety cannot be controlled in organic agriculture as effectively as they can in conventional agriculture. One example is corn chips, which recently had to be recalled because they were contaminated with tropane alkaloids. Since the beginning of 2020, 20 percent of products for which the Swiss Federal Food Safety and Veterinary Office (FSVO) has issued a warning have been organic products. Compared to the 10.9 percent market share organic food represents, this figure is above average. What’s more, the actual recall figure for organic products is likely to be even higher, because the FSVO does not declare whether an organic product is involved for every warning. Urs Niggli, a pioneer of organic agriculture, states: “As a general rule, there is a higher risk in organic agriculture in terms of food safety.”
The simple fact is that dangerous molds cannot be controlled as effectively in organic produce. Even in Switzerland, safe, healthy food cannot be taken for granted. Time and again, products are contaminated with Listeria or noroviruses. Compounds called mycotoxins are particularly dangerous. These are carcinogenic molds. According to the Consumer Choice Center, tens of thousands of liver cancer deaths in Europe alone are caused by mycotoxin poisoning. In developing countries, the scale of the problem is much bigger still. Experts believe that the consequences of being poisoned with aflatoxins – a family of toxins produced by certain molds – are deadlier than malaria or tuberculosis. Some 40 percent of liver cancer fatalities in Africa are associated with the ingestion of aflatoxins. The tragic fact is that aflatoxins can be tackled effectively through use of fungicides. Anybody who refuses to use fungicides without implementing an alternative solution is putting human lives at risk. In terms of food safety, it is not the proper use of pesticides that is the issue – instead, the problems arise when these products are not used at all.
Synthetic crop protection products make an important contribution to food safety. It goes without saying that this knowledge does not provide people with a free pass for using chemical agents. Pesticides also pose risks if they are not used properly. The adage that applies to the professional use of pesticides is “as little as possible and as much as necessary”. Nevertheless, the examples show that responsible crop protection cannot be squeezed into the simple scheme "organic is good, chemical pesticides are bad" - especially since organic farming also uses pesticides, including synthetic ones. But those who use too little crop protection are playing with the risks for consumers.
Food safety is not the only concern – we need to think about food security, too. As reported by Infosperber, a heatwave in China in August of this year caused major damage. Climate change is having a huge impact, not only on agriculture, but on all other areas of the economy, too. However, food security is also a subject being addressed by the parliament in Bern. The Council of States recently held an extraordinary session to discuss the supply situation. According to a report by the Aargauer Zeitung, Beat Rieder, member of the Council of States, emphasized that Switzerland will always have enough food. However, Rieder, who represents the Canton of Valais, also hinted that this attitude shows a lack of solidarity, since it means poorer countries competing against Switzerland on the global market lose out. The productivity of Swiss agriculture is therefore also important.
When used properly, crop protection products pose less of a risk than contaminated foods or crop failures do. Every year, around 600 million people worldwide suffer from diseases transmitted by food. In contrast, crop protection products are carefully tested substances that pose no health risk when used in low concentrations. The levels of crop protection product residues that are found in food are often whipped up into a public scandal. The fact that these residues are usually well below the thresholds at which our health could be impacted is not usually mentioned.
Pesticides also include biocides – cleaning and disinfection agents that are a very important aspect of both animal welfare and food processing. The conclusion of last year’s Swiss-Food Talk was clear –“without biocides, animal welfare and food safety suffer”. Since the pandemic, we all know that disinfectants can keep germs at bay. This is especially true when it comes to food production. Without pesticides, it simply wouldn’t be possible to produce soft drinks in PET bottles, wine, air-dried meat, salami or raw ham.
Professional crop protection products and biocides are essential for public health. Over the past century, human life expectancy has risen by 30 years. The use of pesticides has played a part in this. They protect us against diseases in many different ways and make an important contribution to improving public health. Pesticides are a “technology that supports civilization”, including in terms of food safety – Professor Andreas von Tiedemann from the University of Göttingen emphasized this some time ago in a presentation that is well worth watching. Food safety is therefore one of the ten most important reasons for using crop protection products.
Our naturalness-centric view of food safety is sometimes skewed. What’s more, marketing campaigns and media discussions often distort our view even further. It is therefore important that policy makers have a compass to find a way out of this confusion. Our food is safe – thanks in no small part to innovative chemistry and technical advances. It is important not to lose sight of this, especially when discussing agricultural policy (AP22+). Openness to technologies with a promising future and fact-based regulation continue to be an absolute must if we do not want to take unnecessary health risks.
The Swiss-Food editorial team
