UK: Pesticides in School Apples

The Pesticide Residues Committee (PRC) published their annual report yesterday. The Soil Association was shocked at continued high levels of pesticides found in every day food items, and in particular the fruit being supplied as part of the much criticised school fruit and vegetable scheme. Out of 36 samples of apples being provided to schools, 28 contained the pesticides dimethoate and omethoate. The scheme supplied over 400 million pieces of fruit to 16,000 schools in 2006.

Peter Melchett, Soil Association policy director, stated that the government had given repeated assurances that fruit provided to schools was as good as that sold by supermarket. Therefore, the repeated failure of the government to get pesticides out of the fruit they supplied to schools was a scandal.

Previous research by the Soil Association has shown that fruit provided to the scheme contained higher levels of pesticides than fruit found in supermarkets.  In this year’s report, 77% of apples supplied to schools by government contained pesticides, compared to 71% of apples sold by supermarkets.

In organic farming, natural methods are primarily used to control pests, weeds and disease. Methods are, for example, developing a good soil and healthy crops which have natural resistance to pests and diseases, encouraging natural predators, and well-designed crop rotations.

www.soilassociation.org