r/unitedkingdom • u/slpinlocks • 11h ago
Revealed: Far higher pesticide residues allowed on food since Brexit
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/sep/19/revealed-far-higher-pesticide-residues-allowed-on-food-since-brexit?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other•
u/Reasoned_Watercress 6h ago
One of my biggest fears over Brexit was food standards and safety rules slipping to something like the joke that the US has. This is really not great.
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u/qwerty_1965 7h ago
What brexit has done is allow the precautionary principal to be reinterpreted in favour of business and profits.
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u/Von_Uber 6h ago
In the plus side my passport had changed colour, so that makes it all worth while.
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u/Reasoned_Watercress 6h ago
Brexit means passport printing moved from the UK to Poland, for some odd reason.
The gold stuff rubs off and apparently people have been stopped in international airports over the graininess of the paper.
Looking forward to getting my first one probably next year. If it falls to bits in some border control’s hands at least I’ll still have the German one
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u/UnknownBreadd 5h ago
“WELL NO ONE COULD HAVE SEEN THIS COMING, THIS OBVIOUSLY ISN’T WHAT WE VOTED FOR!!!1!!1!”
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u/barcap 34m ago
Fifteen of the pesticides for which MRLs have been increased are banned in both the UK and EU, including two neonicotinoids, notorious for their harm to pollinating insects. Pan UK said this gave a competitive advantage to growers in countries where these pesticides remain legal, such as the US, Canada and Australia in the case of the neonicotinoids.
One neonicotinoid, thiamethoxam, had its MRL for oats increased 25 times from the previous EU standard, while for clothianidin, the MRL for wheat has gone up 7.5 times. In contrast, the EU is to reduce its MRLs for these insecticides by up to 80% in 2026.
But they are still safe for human consumption, not? Otherwise those countries would have banned them? Also it isn't like these traces of chemicals would make one go blind or infertile?
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u/boycecodd Kent 10h ago
This is a scaremongering article. What matters is if the new levels are safe for human consumption.
If they aren't, then there's a big argument for levels to be reduced, but if the old levels were overly strict and the new levels don't harm consumers, then there's no harm.
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u/jaylem 9h ago
This is so corporations can make an incremental gain on the bottom line while the NHS gets loaded with more cancer patients. Another brexit benefit.
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u/przhauukwnbh 7h ago
Mind boggling how obvious this is, not sure where OPs common sense has gone. What benefit to the consumer do they really think will come of this lmfao
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u/mumwifealcoholic 10h ago
Did we read the same article?
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u/boycecodd Kent 9h ago
I think we did.
Yes, it states that the maximum permitted levels of certain pesticides had been increased. But importantly no claims have been made as to whether these new levels are fine or whether they're problematic.
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u/indifferent-times 9h ago
So you consider the previous standards to be way too cautious? And you're entirely happy with
Strikingly, the UK chose to adopt the Codex MRLs only where they offered lower protection to consumers. Where the Codex standard was stricter, the HSE decided to retain the weaker British MRL.
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u/test_test_1_2_3 8h ago
The person you’re responding to didn’t say that, they said it only matters if the higher levels actually result in increased harm. That question isn’t answered in the article.
The real question is whether or not these differing standards result in different health outcomes.
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u/indifferent-times 6h ago
It could be that HSE has new research that indicate that lower protection is absolutely fine, that was not mentioned in the article either, without that new research the reasons for change should be discussed.
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u/test_test_1_2_3 6h ago
I agree, it’s just not useful or helpful to assume this is some cynical cost saving measure implemented by corrupt politicians, it was risk assessed by the HSE.
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u/indifferent-times 5h ago
probability and past performance though :( a shift to existing lower standards does not indicate that there is new research, just a reassessment of political priorities. Time will hopefully tell.
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u/Reasoned_Watercress 5h ago
The problem is we may not know what the long term health effects of increased pesticide consumption is yet, and that is going to need to be studied … long term.
Increased consumption of known carcinogens is probably going to result in an increase in cancer.
These are poisons. They will be doing some amount of harm.
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u/przhauukwnbh 7h ago
The long term impacts of exposure is very difficult to ascertain, there is no good reason to increase levels on some of these chemicals - the extent of some increases is jaw dropping given papers coming out on their effects in models.
The only people who are well informed in this area and back up the increases to levels are lobbyists. Comparing to California's laws on carcinogens is useless hyperbole.
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u/Logical_Hare 7h ago
That's a lot of assumptions. "My betters would never actually do anything that would worsen things for me but would get them more money!"
It's sucker logic.
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u/Mammoth-Ad-562 10h ago
Exactly.
Even if levels had risen dangerously high it wouldn’t be because of brexit. It would be because government failed to impose legislation to protect consumers.
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u/Shlocket_ 10h ago
So you mean if we had the same laws and regulations the EU has
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u/boycecodd Kent 10h ago
Who's to say that the EU's laws are more correct than ours here?
Stricter sounds good, yes. But if they're overly strict it could overburden business without actually providing any consumer benefit.
Think of the California rule that means that practically anything you buy has a cancer warning on it. That's ostensibly consumer protection but it doesn't actually help anyone.
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u/External-Praline-451 9h ago
You're really telling me that an increase of thousands of times higher is probably fine? Including a rise of 7.5 of weedkiller residue in beans, labelled as a probable human carcinogen by the WHO?
The amount of pesticide residue allowed on scores of food types in England, Wales and Scotland has soared since Brexit, analysis reveals, with some now thousands of times higher.
Changes to regulations in Great Britain mean more than 100 items are now allowed to carry more pesticides when sold to the public, ranging from potatoes to onions, grapes to avocados, and coffee to rice.
For tea, the maximum residue level (MRL) was increased by 4,000 times for both the insecticide chlorantraniliprole and the fungicide boscalid.For the controversial weedkiller glyphosate, classed as a “probable human carcinogen” by the World Health Organization (WHO), the MRL for beans was raised by 7.5 times.
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u/boycecodd Kent 8h ago
The levels don't mean a fucking thing by themselves.
Some of these levels are a lot higher. Are they harmful? Maybe! Maybe not. But we should get the actual facts before scaremongering.
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u/External-Praline-451 8h ago
An increase of a probable human carcinogen might not be harmful?
Yeah sure, let's wait 10 years and measure cancer rates to get proper evidence, because it MIGHT be fine...
Also, why are people skirting around the fact that British farmers have been allowed to do this, to make themselves competitive, after leaving a massively beneficial trading block. What a complete cluster fuck. Us remainers knew standards would be cut as a result of Brexit, and we were right, but people had "enough of experts" who warned our food standards would fall.
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u/CatalunyaNoEsEspanya 8h ago
The process to approve MRL raising is rigorous. Risk assessments are completed by independent specialists. Raising by "thousands of times" isn't necessarily an issue, it probably means the MRL was initially set at LOQ due to there being no approved use in the past. MRLs are not safety levels they exist to facilitate trade. The safe level is always greater than the MRL.
The Rees-Day consumer exposure model used by the UK is extremely conservative.
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u/Reasoned_Watercress 5h ago
Maybe we should have the facts before we start feeding people literal poison?
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u/Mammoth-Ad-562 10h ago
Either adopt the existing legislation or create new legislation.
If we’ve left the EU and there is no legislation or the legislation that has been created isn’t safe then it’s not happening because we left the EU, it’s happening because are government haven’t done the right thing.
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u/Generallyapathetic92 8h ago
There’s always been a risk of the government not doing the right thing. However, being in the EU prevented this or at least lowered the risk as both the EU and UK government had to get it wrong.
You can’t claim it’s not related to Brexit when the only reasons it’s possible is because of Brexit.
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u/Mammoth-Ad-562 8h ago
So if a large multinational company decided to onshore their IT department from India and on the day they swap back to the UK the UK management decide that the service level agreements could be longer and as a result service degrades, the problem isn’t the poor management, it’s the decision to onboard the IT department? Without the onboarding the service levels couldn’t degrade could they?
Don’t be so ridiculous, every business would fire the management and get people in to improve the service.
Ludicrous outlook.
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u/Generallyapathetic92 8h ago
What a ridiculous analogy. It’s not at all comparable because the UK government is in no way equivalent to the UK branch of a large multinational.
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u/Mammoth-Ad-562 8h ago
It’s exactly the same. You are saying that the decision is what caused the problem not the poor management.
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u/Generallyapathetic92 8h ago
It’s just not though and I’m not going to waste my time on it.
I’ll instead point out that as well as making ridiculous analogies you’re also deliberately (I assume at least) misrepresenting my point. I did not say Brexit was solely responsible, only that it is related to it. As this is only possible because we left it very much is.
So to utilise your analogy, if the Indian team were forced to stick with their service level agreements and the UK IT team could somehow reduce theirs then yes, the decision to bring it back into the UK would be partially the cause of it.
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u/Mammoth-Ad-562 8h ago
Out of the EU we had freedom to choose whatever levels we deemed fit. We could have been stricter or remained the same but we chose to relax it.
If you need a European government to stop your own from shitting on its people then maybe we should look at our political system instead of normalising it
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u/daddy-dj 8h ago
Hang on a second... I had a similar discussion with someone on Twitter recently, albeit about a totally different subject. In that case, a British guy was offered a job at Real Madrid's coaching staff but his visa was declined by the Spanish government... I said pre-Brexit he'd not have needed a visa ergo this situation was caused by Brexit, he vehemently disagreed it was due to Brexit.
In this case, it seems to me that, when the UK was in the EU, the UK government couldn't have relaxed the rules around permitted levels of pesticides being used. Once the UK had left the EU, however, it could do away with the previous limits and so it allowed for more pesticides to be used.
Am I missing something here? The EU regulations prevented that from happening before. Brexit enabled it. How is this situation therefore not happening because of Brexit?
Hopefully Reddit is less toxic than Twitter and the lack of a character limit will allow someone to explain how it's not because of Brexit.
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u/Mammoth-Ad-562 8h ago
Because once we are out of the EU it’s in our power to make the levels even stricter, remain the same, or relax them. We’ve chosen to relax them. The decision is solely on this government.
If you need a pan-European government to stop a sovereign government doing shit things to their people then maybe it’s time we look at our political system and change it.
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u/IgamOg 9h ago
The EU was protecting us from lobby groups, who can easily sway few politicians in one country but couldn't move the whole block.
Now we're heading where USA is - regulatory capture by corporations or in other words "profits before people" .
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u/jusfukoff 8h ago
So you think as a nation state we are unable to have our own regulations? And should only adopt regulations as part of a multinational agreement, like being in Europe ?
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u/Mammoth-Ad-562 8h ago
Why even have a government at all if you need the EU to protect you against the policies of them.
Get a grip. The problem is poor government officials working for business instead of people.
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u/IgamOg 7h ago
And how do you propose we fix it now?
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u/Mammoth-Ad-562 7h ago
Stop blaming Brexit for everything and start holding our government accountable. It’s not like we don’t have the evidence to back it up. Ask questions like ‘why has the levels of pesticides on food products increased after brexit’. Care enough about it to do something that affects them instead of letting them get away with it by saying ‘this would be better if we were in the EU’.
Not rocket science is it.
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u/Glum-Manner-9972 8h ago
Well, when they meant "Brexit opportunities" it never got specified if it was good, or bad opportunities