PESTICIDES SEMINAR

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• PESTICIDES SEMINAR
• GAFTA HOUSE
• FRIDAY, 7 NOVEMBER 2008
• WEBB JAMES SRL
• Mr Stefano Trumpy

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• PRELIMINARY REMARKS
• . The stated objective of the European Union, as
  far as food is concerned, is to increase safety
  for end consumers through a more careful activity
  of risk assessment (especially through
  the scientific activity of the European Food
  Safety Authority EFSA), which often turns into
  legislative measures (and, thus, into LIMITS
  to be complied with...). This applies, for
  instance, to the pesticide package, all the
  measures related to the issue of labelling and
  nutritional claims, the forthcoming spice
  package, and so on.
• . The newly promulgated rule, which is effective
  from 1st September 2008, is the harmonization at
  a European level of about 98 of the principles
  in force in Member States, while a few Countries,
  such as Italy, already had a
  comprehensive law on pesticides since 1985.

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• EU --gt THE GREATEST PROTECTION OF END CONSUMERS
• PHILOSOPHY TO BE APPLIED
• Food chain operators must (necessarily) consider
  the regulations on food as opportunities of
  market growth, consolidation and protection by
  extra-European processors and traders, who are
  remarkably competitive as far as cost reduction
  is concerned, but who are not able to offer the
  (high) food safety guarantees required by the EU.
  Moreover, a safe activity of the operators from
  the world of spices should be taken into account
  this safety is acquired through the sale of
  products that are actually consistent with
  existing regulations. As a matter of fact, food
  risks are so expensive that they jeopardize the
  whole business of a company.
• OPERATORS --gt HIGH FOOD SAFETY MARKET
  PROTECTION
• Food chain operators must take any action, effort
  and investment so that goods reaching the points
  of entry are consistent with food regulations,
  in order to avoid any problem with health
  authorities (from the rejection and reshipment of
  goods to their seizure and destruction) and the
  ensuing financial losses, and also great losses
  at times.

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• OPERATORS --gt GUARANTEED PRODUCTS AT POINTS OF
  ENTRY
• WITH FEWER PROBLEMS WITH HEALTH AUTORITIES AND
  LOWER EXPENSES
• Food chain operators must be certain that buying
  a better product and thus paying a higher price
  will, in any case, be more cost-effective than
  having to cope with the destruction of the lot or
  its sale (selling-off) in other non-EU Countries
  (bearing in mind that regulations prohibit it
  therefore, it is advisable to contemplate DDP
  quarantine).
• OPERATORS --gt HIGHER COSTS TO BUY GUARANTEED
  GOODS MEAN HIGHER SAVINGS ( FEWER PROBLEMS)

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• SUPPLIER APPROVAL
• CATEGORY OF SUPPLIERS
• Implement a direct auditing plan in the
  Countries of Origin, aimed at understanding
  whether, besides single preparation, company
  organization and work method, there are other
  conditions really allowing control or non-control
  of pesticides.
• The Supplier must be aware of the problem
  (pesticides) and be able to check that the
  product is coming from specific cultivations or
  at least is not accidentally bought on the
  local market, but rather knowing the field of
  origin and the specific cautions used by the
  farmers (e.g. use of active substances with
  high maximum residue levels, compliance with
  doses and withholding periods, environments that
  are neither polluted nor subject to the drift
  of active substances from other neighbouring
  crops or irrigation water, pesticide-less
  cultivation techniques, use of cultivar that
  are more resistant to infestations, etc.). In
  addition, the Supplier must necessarily guarantee
  that the supplied product is compliant when
  entering the EU and its quality is guaranteed at
  destination.

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Give up self-audit systems through documents to
be e-mailed to Suppliers and filled in by
them. They are absolutely unreliable! Only
approve processors or, better, direct producers
and processors a several- year experience
showed that it is expedient and advisable to turn
to direct producers and
processors, rather than to original traders
(exporters), who entrust third
parties with cultivations and thus have less
control on the quality of the product.
Clearly inform the Suppliers that supplied
products should be compliant with EU
regulations on pesticides. (Almost) certainly the
products sold so far, with the
exception of wild collections, even though they
led to no claims for pesticides, are very
probably illegal. We must realize that up to
now the compliance of a product and thus of a
supplier was facilitated by the fact
that no analysis to determine pesticide
residues was carried out either by
official control authorities or by food
operators. Advise ones own approved
suppliers NOT TO USE pesticides in growing and,
should it not be possible, suggest a list
of allowed pesticides that have high
maximum residue limits according to law. In
practice, all non-allowed products need to
be excluded, especially those whose residue
limits are very low
(0.01mg/kg).
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• BUYING POLICY
• TENDERS It will not be possible to put out
  to tender (i.e. to send a request to several
  companies and bargain the lowest price) any
  longer. You will realize that it will be very
  difficult to find Suppliers able to guarantee
  products complying with the regulations and, in
  some Countries of Origin, they will not be more
  than one or two.
• PURCHASES Only buy from approved Suppliers,
  who proved to be aware of the problem, to be able
  to carry out analyses through EU laboratories, to
  give real guarantees, to be ready to be sent back
  a non-compliant lot, etc.
• PRICE The price of guaranteed products will
  certainly be higher. The reason is due to the
  fact that, even though they are the same type of
  product, a compliant lot and a non-compliant lot
  actually belong to two completely different
  markets and should, in actual fact, be considered
  as different products in all respects. To this
  aim, it is important to observe that some
  Countries generally send offers or price lists of
  products guaranteed as pesticide-free and of the
  same products that are not guaranteed as
  pesticide-free. To this it must be added that the
  Suppliers able to give reliable guarantees are
  the more organized and therefore more expensive.

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GUARANTEE ON PURCHASE/PAYMENT

• CONTRACT AND GUARANTEES
• A real guarantee is obtained only through
  payment after arrival and approval for
  non-European Suppliers, or, at least, partial
  payment. During the years, we succeeded in
  obtaining good results only with the Suppliers,
  who accepted to ship goods with the payment
  after arrival and approval, documents in trust
  clause, thus they were thus really obliged to
  supply a compliant product, under penalty of the
  obligation to reship the goods and pay all the
  expenses. This resulted in their being really
  interested in having a control over pollutants
  and, in most cases, we noticed that they used to
  send samples to European laboratories before
  shipment.

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• In the European Union, this problem does not
  exist, since the product must comply with
  regulations in force. The responsibility to
  ascertain food compliance falls on the importer,
  also when the importer has no analyses or applies
  commercial agreements that are commonly
  believed to limit the liability (such as IGPA
  SPOT CONTRACT). No commercial agreement can limit
  law provisions in force, unless the product is
  contractually intended for non-human food use.
  This also applies to any clause, such as quality
  approved at departure or quality approved on
  the basis of the certification submitted by the
  Supplier.
• In case of non-compliance ascertained through
  the analysis of the goods at destination, the
  European or non-European Supplier is bound to
  take back the lot and pay transport charges. As
  contract term, it may be useful to state the
  laboratory, where the analysis will be carried
  out, to protect both parties.

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• QUALITY CONTROL
• In actual fact, the trend of European laws on
  food makes it impossible to work on the basis of
  documents only! The equivalence between
  analytical certificate and consistent goods
  cannot be virtually applied any longer. As a
  matter of fact,
• Certificates of origin are invalid, they only
  serve as an indication, or they may be valid in
  special cases, out of standard practice (e.g.
  Sudan and import certificates).
• The certificates, which are issued by EU
  laboratories, are reliable if they are accredited
  by a suitable Control Authority. The analytical
  methods used must comply with the instructions
  given by EU existing regulations on the matter
  (which is often very complex!). We will see below
  what it means to have an accredited method.

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• QUALITY CONTROL
• In actual fact, the trend of European laws on
  food makes it impossible to work on the basis of
  documents only! The equivalence between
  analytical certificate and consistent goods
  cannot be virtually applied any longer. As a
  matter of fact,
• Certificates of origin are invalid, they only
  serve as an indication, or they may be valid in
  special cases, out of standard practice (e.g.
  Sudan and import certificates).
• The certificates, which are issued by EU
  laboratories, are reliable if they are accredited
  by a suitable Control Authority. The analytical
  methods used must comply with the instructions
  given by EU existing regulations on the matter
  (which is often very complex!). We will see below
  what it means to have an accredited method.

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• Considering the fact that a laboratory analyses
  one sample of 100 500 grams, taking a pinch
  of only a few grams from this sample (as in the
  case of pesticides) for a batch of goods of 10
  20 mt, it is clear that the sample must be taken
  with the utmost possible care. There are specific
  regulations, which food chain operators must
  necessarily refer to for sample taking according
  to the type of pollutant searched for (e.g.
  mycotoxins, heavy metals, pesticides, etc.). In
  some cases (e.g. aflatoxins), it may be advisable
  to carry out a more careful and precise (and much
  more expensive!) sampling than the one provided
  for by EU regulations, so as to decrease the risk
  of untrue results.
• Taking into account the criticality at the time
  of sampling, we should only rely on the quality
  control carried out by the company, without using
  warehouse staff. We suggest you not to have third
  parties - such as, a forwarder, warehousing
  company, or certified sampler - take the sample.

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• The better is the sampling method used, the
  higher is the guarantee following the analysis
  and the higher is the certainty that what we pay
  for and distribute is a consistent product.
• An analysis of the hazards and ensuing risks
  needs to be performed on the different food
  matrices that are the subject of corporate
  business, so as to focus the attention on real
  problems and avoid losing time and resources on
  non-important aspects (e.g. presence of
  pesticides in wild products). For the drawing up
  of such as document, TIME and EXPERIENCE also
  gained through direct contacts with the Suppliers
  (audit and quality inspections) are required.

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• LABORATORIES OF ANALYSIS
• Use of EU laboratories accredited by Official
  Control Authorities only.
• What needs being accredited is not the
  laboratory, but rather THE SINGLE ANALYTICAL
  METHOD USED!
• Since the analysis is an instrumental activity
  and thus it never is thoroughly precise, it is
  necessary to know the uncertainty factor of the
  method in relation to the analytical result found
  (that may occasionally reach plus or minus 20
  30!). We remind that, in some cases (e.g.
  mycotoxins), the result of an analysis should be
  considered consistent taking into account the
  recovery due to the uncertainty factor of the
  method.
• It is necessary to have a sufficient knowledge
  and experience to properly read analytical
  certificates. In some cases, it may be advisable
  to ask the laboratory for a suitable declaration
  of conformity that also takes into account the
  uncertainty factor unfortunately, not all
  analytical laboratories are willing to issue this
  certificate (and a small part of them at least
  may also not be able to...). This experience
  should also concern a proper interpretation of
  the law (e.g. for product classification, the use
  of dehydration factors, etc.).

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• To support the activity of assessment or
  non-assessment of a lot regarding pesticides, the
  Web site prepared by the Official Authority
  http//ec.europa.eu/sanco_pesticides/public/index.
  cfm, as well as the official document containing
  the dehydration factors for spices and aromatic
  herbs drawn up by ESA may be useful.
• It is necessary to identify among accredited
  laboratories the laboratories that have a greater
  analytical experience in the field of pesticides
  and especially spices, a food matrix that is not
  common and particularly difficult due to the high
  presence of essential oils and pigments
  interfering in different ways, which results in a
  modification of analytical results when the
  analytical method has not been defined or applied
  with the necessary expertise.
• It is necessary to assess the performance of
  the analysis laboratories used. If a ring test
  cannot be carried out, it is necessary to request
  a copy of the ring tests performed by the
  laboratory (and required by the accreditation
  protocol).

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• PROCEDURES FOR GOODS RECEIPT AND CLEARANCE
• Should the goods turn out to be not consistent
  at the time of importation or, even worse, later
  at the time of nationalization, EU regulations
  envisage the rejection and reshipment to the
  original supplier or the destruction of the lot.
  A notification to Official Health Control
  Authorities is also required.
• It is allowed to directly carry out food
  controls at points of entry in Europe on goods
  that are still in the foreign country, and thus
  before nationalization, using bonded warehouses.
  For the above-mentioned reasons, it will be
  necessary to use responsible and qualified staff
  for sampling so as to have reliable results. To
  do this, for practical sampling purposes, it will
  be necessary to store the goods in the bonded
  warehouse, and then carry out the sampling after
  the container has been unloaded. The samples
  taken from the first row of sacks appearing when
  the container is opened are a non-sense.

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• A PENALTY KICK IS AWARDED WHEN THE REFEREE
  WHISTLES
• In conclusion, it must be said that all the
  aforementioned statements are true only if the
  Health Authorities of the European Union or of a
  single UE Member State carry out serious and
  strong controls, so as to discourage the market
  of non-consistent products. Otherwise,
  non-guaranteed products will appear both on the
  market and on our tables, as it still happens
  today the subject of an unfair competition,
  against which little can be done, since it is
  impossible to compete with the extremely lower
  prices of these products.
• It follows that non-consistent products will
  be considered as such only when final Authorities
  or end buyers (e.g. supermarkets) will oblige
  food chain operators to properly act, under
  penalty of exclusion of the Supplier and/or
  measures for the repression of the fraud in
  progress.