Another food scare could be brewing in China – this time in the fresh produce sector – after unconfirmed media reports that apple growers in Yantai in eastern Shandong Province have been wrapping young apples in pesticide-coated paper.
On June 11, the Beijing News reported that some farmers in Yantai, one of China’s major apple growing regions, were using bags coated with prohibited pesticides to protect the apples.
While it is common practice for farmers in China to wrap the fruit during the production process to protect it against damage from insects, inclement weather or branch rub, the use of pesticides inside the bags is illegal.
But the Beijing News reported that the papers used to wrap the apples were coated with the pesticides tuzet and arsenical fungicide. Farmers wrap the apples with those drugs to ensure they have a smooth surface and a fine appearance in order to boost sales, the regional newspaper said.
Shandong provincial authorities have opened an investigation into the allegations, while the local government has pledged to end the use of apple bags contaminated with banned substances, and to shut down any operations found to be making such bags.
“We haven’t come to any conclusion yet in the investigation,” Yang Lijian, director of the pesticide inspection department of the Shandong Agriculture Bureau, told the China Daily.
Yang said an investigation of pesticide residue on ripe fruit from local farmers in September 2011 showed that some producers were using bags with pesticides inside. According to the China Daily, the Yantai government found in 2010 that some orchard workers applied diluted pesticides on the inside of fruit bags. Those pesticides included tuzet and asomate, which are prohibited from use in this process.
Officials in Yantai have also moved to reassure trade and consumers that all apples exported from the region are safe.
“The apples passed the Ministry of Agriculture’s quality checks in 2010 and 2011,” an unnamed spokesman for Yantai city government told reporters at a press conference earlier this week, according to Chinese news agency Xinhua. “We exported 217,000 tonnes of apples last year, and not a single quality dispute was reported.”
