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Mr. President;
Who is responsible for the rotten spoiled poisoned food that Egyptians eat and led to the deterioration of their health condition?
Last week, Land centre had received, with great concern, the news of setting 27 tons of internationally banned pesticides in a secret store house in nitrite valley; 95 kilometer of Cairo Alexandria desert road, before being promoted and sold in market, in form of packages with different shapes and sizes, where its level of production is for national and foreign firms, affirming the deterioration of quality of clean food in Egypt.
Law states that a pesticide committee shall be setup in ministry of Agriculture, where, this committee, is authorized to suggest pesticides that is permitted to be used, and detecting its requirements, procedures of its registration, conditions of its usage, and the procedures to have permission to import pesticides and trading on it.
Law, also, allows inspectors to take free samples of the following; imported pesticides, the nationally produced ones, the pesticides offered for sale, or circulated, in order to be tested in analysis, and being checked for its validity. In order to do all this, inspectors can access to places where pesticides are located, or suspected to be located, except private places specialized for private life. They can, also, in case of fraud suspicion, preserve pesticides, however, those legal provision were not deterrent for traders, producers and fraudulent, corrupt decision makers.
Our country is, still, considered as one of the biggest countries that uses pesticides comparing to the planted area, where pesticides represents a serious problem on both; economic and hygienic level. This serious problem can be more cleared when we know that there are 500 types of registered pesticides in Egypt, 200 of them were prohibited from usage. We can envision that grave disaster when we know that more than 300 types of pesticides were prohibited from being used by ministerial decree 719 after being used. Those pesticides entered livers, kidneys, and hearts of Egyptians. Some of those prohibited pesticides are still used in Egyptian markets.
Because of utilizing those pesticides, hundreds of Egyptians are poisoned every year, whereas, thousands of Egyptians suffer different diseases, like; kidney failure, liver failure, cancer. Official statistics illustrates that percentage of Egyptians who suffer kidney failure reaches 20 from each thousand, while the highest percentage in the world is 4 from each thousand. Pesticides, also, cause the death of many animals, useful birds, beside its profound effect on fisheries. Pesticides remains in food are considered one of the worst problems, caused by intensive use of pesticides. Also, pesticides in water represent a big threat to citizens' health.
Also, intensive pesticides use causes many dangerous threats to the soil, leading to barren the cultivated land after long while. For example; D.D.T pesticide can remain for 30 years on soil, because it barely dissolves in water.
Using spoiled pesticides in production of food is considered a health catastrophe, as it caused many diseases to citizens; percentage of cancer infection represents 150 cases from each 100,000, every year, ranging from 100 thousands to 110 thousand each year.
Continuity of such a status quo, in Egypt, might duplicate the percentage of cancer infection, unless procedures to confront this disease are taken throughout the next fifteen years.
Many official reports assure that concentration of "D.D.T" substance, which is called "Mother of pesticides", in the bodies of cancer patients is twice and half more than the concentration of the same substance in non-patients. The reports pointed to the main reason leads to spread of brain cancer among workers in the field of pesticides, which is, prominently, the usage of the pesticides, where rate of infection among workers in triple more than rate of infection among non-workers.
Official statistics estimate that numbers of injured people with serious diseases like; viruses (B- C) and cancer is almost 10 millions patients, in Egypt.
Official statistics refer, also, to the number of people infected with cancer annually, which is 250,000; it means that nearly 6 or 7 million were infected in the last 20 years.
It means that rate of patients living with cancer raised, in year 2005, 20 times compared to year 1992.
Therefore, the centre urges to, emergently, amend laws, in order to oblige producers to stick evidentiary stickers, which is similar to medical inscriptions, on the pesticides bottles, including all pesticides data, like; the name, the active substances and their ratios, inactive substances and their ratio, the importing company, the producing company, the name of the pest to be effected by the pesticide, and dangers of misuse.
On other side, many measurements and alternative policies should be applied, so as to protect our food from pollution by preventing usage of fake pesticides in agriculture, because, unfortunately, rampant corruption in our society has inactivated the rule of diverse points of control, also it has deactivated law enforcement. In addition, penalties must be harsher in case of deliberate misuse or trade of prohibited pesticides, or overweighting commercial interest than public health.
Centre stresses on the importance of revamping the committee of pesticides, and renewing its roles, since it is a governmental committee that doesn't fall under the jurisdiction or inspection. The committee was organized to regulate the registration, the importation the handling, the usage, and the procedures of experiments of pesticides. It is also competent to everything pertains to the use of pesticides in Egypt. The committee must be restructured, also, to include experts, specialized governmental and non-governmental researchers, syndicates, parties, social movements, and civil society in Egypt.
At the end, the centre believes that food production control is as much important as medicine control, as human being life is the most valuable thing in humanity. Therefore, our governments shall apply alternative economic and social policies that improve the quality of our lives, and provide healthy food, and health care for citizens, especially producers and citizens with low income.
For all the aforementioned, the centre requests from Mr. President of Egypt, Mr. Prime minister, and Mr. Minister of agriculture to take all required procedures that guarantees the protection of our agricultural products, and our food from pollution, corruption, and fraud.
For more information, please contact the Center