Canada to lower pesticide use standards [General]
2007 May 9
You say 'all in the name of trade' Piglet like it's going to benefit us financially. If anything, this only means more imports, not more exports... I'm more worried by the statistic at the end of the article that the testing done by CFIA (Canadian Food Inspection Agency) only found pesticides on 10% of items tested, but that the American counterpart agency found pesticides on 75%. Does that mean our testing isn't effective?
I can say that I've been involved with farming before, and I'm not against chemical use for the purposes of unavoidable pest control, but by the same token I think there should be incentive for farmers not to use pesticides if they can get away with it. It reminds me of a farmer I met who sold organic beef (no hormones, no medecins etc). I asked him, what does he do if an animal gets sick? Does he let it 'heal' on it's own, or let it suffer through sickness? I was pleasantly surprised by his response. He treats sick animals just like any other farmer (medecin as required), but he isolates the sick animal, and after it's better sells it on the normal (non-organic) market (to remove from his herd). I was totally in agreement with this policy, as I had had crazy thoughts of organic farmers basically abusing their animals by allowing them to get sick without redress. These are my honest thoughts, and not meant to draw the ire of people more 'organically' opinionated.
I can say that I've been involved with farming before, and I'm not against chemical use for the purposes of unavoidable pest control, but by the same token I think there should be incentive for farmers not to use pesticides if they can get away with it. It reminds me of a farmer I met who sold organic beef (no hormones, no medecins etc). I asked him, what does he do if an animal gets sick? Does he let it 'heal' on it's own, or let it suffer through sickness? I was pleasantly surprised by his response. He treats sick animals just like any other farmer (medecin as required), but he isolates the sick animal, and after it's better sells it on the normal (non-organic) market (to remove from his herd). I was totally in agreement with this policy, as I had had crazy thoughts of organic farmers basically abusing their animals by allowing them to get sick without redress. These are my honest thoughts, and not meant to draw the ire of people more 'organically' opinionated.
2007 May 9
Piglet........you're right! This article is terrible if we consider that cancer and pesticides are greatly connected. I can tell you that in Europe the regulations about pesticides in agriculture are more restrictive than in Usa. Transfats are banned, it's forbidden any use of oak chips or inner-staves in winemaking, omega3 are not added in the milk, frauds are heavily punished with jail detection, etc. etc. It's clear that the American approach to these problems is "lighter". I think that Canada has a lot of potentials if someboby wants to take care of quality in agriculture. Quality is the best guarantee for our companies and for customer's health. It's not an empty word. For sure somebody has to start supporting Canadian organic farmers.
2007 May 10
But consider this Mr. Red... although there is more public support in Europe for such measures (pesticide restriction etc) we must also remember that the Europeans also use it as a trade restriction to help keep North American agricultural products off of their markets. We should not entirely confuse protectionism with some higher moral authority...
piglet
www.canada.com
The gist of the article is that Canada is going to lower its pesticide use standards to harmonize with those of our neighbours to the south. This will allow for higher residue levels on fruit and vegetables. All in the name of trade.
North America is already lagging behind the EU and some developing countries with respect to allowed levels of pesticides. We are definitely going in the wrong direction... It is definitely time to start supporting our local organic farmers!