Open-air markets have always been an attractive place to buy fruit and vegetables. Those who go to them will tell you how fresh the produce is, how varied and rich it is, what reasonable prices there are and how you can go to the market late in the afternoon and enjoy significant discounts. However, constant warnings about the use of pesticides on vegetables and fruit have dampened the enthusiasm of some, and those who could allow themselves have moved over to buying organic fruits and vegetables.
In order to examine whether the vegetables and fruit that are being sold at open-air markets are indeed seeped in pesticides that endanger our health, we carried out an examination of samples of the produce at a number of markets in different parts of the country, in cooperation with the Consumer Council and the Aminolab laboratories; the aim was to see whether any surpassed the permitted level of pesticides in the produce.
We chose five large and well-known open-air markets: the Carmel Market in Tel Aviv, the Mahaneh Yehuda market in Jerusalem, the market on Hayahalom Street in Netanya, the market on Hehalutz Street in Haifa's Talpiot neighborhood, and the market in Ramle. We examined vegetables and fruit that were likely to contain large amounts of pesticides, such as lettuce, cucumber, celery, parsley, spring onions and grapes.
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"The difference between produce with leaves and other vegetables is that in those with leaves, the farmer has to maintain the cleanliness of the leaves because we eat the vegetable mass and the vegetable is consumed in its entirety," says Avraham Erlich, the director of the vegetable unit at the Plant Council. "Therefore, the farmer has a much more difficult time dealing with diseases and pests on leaves."
"In hot-house plants, it is possible to deal with the pests by using protective nets and thus to lessen the use of pesticides," he adds.
A pesticide cannot be completely removed even when the vegetable is washed thoroughly, since it is absorbed into the plant or the vegetable and remains there until it disintegrates naturally.
At each of the five markets, a total of five or six vegetables or fruits were tested, from one or more stalls, randomly - one kilo of cucumbers, a bunch of grapes, two bunches of parsley, two bunches of spring onions, one head of lettuce and one bunch of celery.
The results were quite encouraging. Of the five markets that were examined, higher-than-allowed levels of pesticide were found at only two of them - at a stall in the Haifa market and at three stalls in the Netanya market. At the Carmel, Mahaneh Yehuda and Ramle markets, no such deviations were found at all.
Of the 28 samples that were taken in general from all of the markets, amounts of pesticide above the permitted norm were found in six of them (21%) and in one of the samples, excessive levels of two kinds of pesticide were found.
In percentage terms, there was a slight increase in the present test compared to a similar test carried out last summer by the Consumer Council and Channel 10, which found deviations from the regulations in 18% of the fruit and vegetables from supermarkets. Nevertheless, the percentages are still relatively low.
At the Netanya open-air market, five types of vegetables from three separate stalls were examined. Of these, excessive amounts of pesticides were found in three kinds of vegetables. In the celery, organic phosphorous was detected at a level of 0.02 parts per million, while the authorities forbid any of this kind of substance in vegetables.
"The use of this material expected to cease in the coming year and while this is not a high level of deviation, it is clear that if the regulation is zero amount of the substance, then this is not acceptable," said Uri Golner, the director of the department that examines residuals of pesticides at Aminolab.
In the lettuce at one of the stalls in that market, a substance known by the commercial name of Dorsan, considered the most widely-used pesticide, was found at 0.26 ppm, a significant deviation since there is a total ban on its existence in vegetables.
"The farmer apparently sprayed the lettuce and sent it to the market within a day or two, even though the use of this substance entails a waiting period of at least two weeks between spraying and marketing, since the substance is stable and disintegrates slowly," Golner explains.
It must be remembered that the rate of a pesticide's disintegration is affected also by the weather - pesticides disintegrate faster in heat than in cold and the farmer has to take this into account before sending the produce to the market. Dorsan was also found in the spring onions, at 0.01 ppm, but this deviation is relatively minor.
The Netanya Municipality said in response that the findings of the lab have been transferred to the Health Ministry and the Agriculture Ministry, which are by law responsible for enforcing the law regarding pesticides. The municipality added that it also sent its inspectors to check where the produce was bought and that the relevant authorities were informed and the municipality will act according to their instructions.
At one stall in the Haifa market, five different types of vegetables were examined. In three of them, excessive pesticides were found, and in one of them deviations in two types of pesticides were found. In the parsley, 0.99 ppm of a pesticide called Pirimor (organic nitrogen), which is not allowed at all, was found.
"The substance is less problematic from the point of view of toxicity than the Dorsan which was found in the lettuce in Netanya, but a level of 0.99 ppm is still problematic," says Golner.
In the sample of spring onions from this Haifa market that was tested, 2.76 ppm of Simbush was found. Although the permitted level of this pesticide is only 0.1 ppm and the deviation was considerable, the substance is considered not very toxic and therefore this does not pose a danger to the health of those who eat it.
The most significant finding was in the celery, in which there were excessive levels of two types of pesticides - Tinox at a level of 0.12 ppm, and Pirimor at a level of 0.03 ppm - both of which are completely forbidden. However, in both cases, the poison is not dangerous to humans.
In response to these findings, the Haifa Municipality announced that it is not responsible for the pesticides in produce that is marketed within its boundaries and that this is the responsibility of the Agriculture Ministry.
The consumer who buys from an open-air market has no way of tracing the source of the vegetables and fruit there and checking whether they contain pesticides. Against this background, it is even more obvious that an effective means of supervision is necessary, they say at the Consumers Council.
"The open-air markets are the Achilles' heel of all the agricultural produce in Israel," adds Aminolab's Golner. "It is impossible to know who produces the vegetables and where they were picked."
However, sources at the Agriculture Ministry say that the origins of the produce that reach the open-air markets are identical to the origins of the produce at supermarkets and therefore, for the most part, if excessive levels of pesticides are found at open-air markets, it can be assumed that the same deviations will be found in supermarkets. The difference is that at the supermarket chains, unlike the open-air markets, it is possible to trace the source of the produce with ease.
The vegetable unit of the Plant Council and the Agriculture Ministry are working together to impose a requirement to mark fruit and vegetables so that the consumer will know the identity of the producer and the person selling the produce can report at any stage if the produce is safe for eating.
"To my regret, there is still no obligatory standard in Israel with regard to marketing that identifies the identity of the produce, and there is also no rule that deals with the issue of marking the produce - who the farmer is, the quality of the produce and the date on which it was picked or packed," says Erlich of the Plant Council.
He adds, however, that the responsibility for the quality of the produce lies on the shoulders of the person who has it and not on the shoulders of the person who grows it.
"If a merchant in the market is not able to tell me where the vegetable I want to buy comes from, that is not acceptable," says Erlich. "He must know where the produce came from."
According to Erlich, in the big supermarket chains, every crate is marked according to regulations. However, even in the July 2007 test carried out by the Consumers Council and Channel 10, at the Blue Square and Super-Sol supermarket chains there were deviations from the permitted standard in the level of pesticide allowed in 18% of the fruit and vegetables that were examined (seven out of 40 items). The director general of the Consumer Council, attorney Ehud Peleg, says that, "The Consumer Council expects those who are responsible for the matter - the Agriculture Ministry and the Health Ministry, together and independently - to make sure that there are no poisons in the food we eat."
Spokesmen in the Agriculture Ministry's Plant Protection and Inspection Services said in response that they constantly inspect for residuals of pesticides in agricultural produce by taking samples grown in Israel for the local market, in the fields of the farmers and in the packing houses, and that the samples are analyzed in the ministry's laboratories. Every year, they added, they carry out a survey that includes 1,000 samples for inspection of the fresh agricultural produce to see whether pesticide residuals are in accordance with the standards and the approved levels. By means of comparison, in the entire United States, only 10,000 tests are done annually and only 40,000 tests are carried out in all the countries of the European Union combined.
The ministry also has a unit that supervises the transfer of agricultural produce from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, and prevents illegal produce from entering, in accordance with agreements between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. In 2007, 569 cases of smuggled produce were caught.
The Health Ministry examines between seven and 10 examples of fruit, vegetables and spices every week. Samples from the supermarket chains, from the warehouses of the distributors and from the packing houses are taken by the health bureaus' food service. The Health Ministry then reports its findings to the Agriculture Ministry, and the latter deals with the matter in the field.
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