The Dutch health authorities have pulled from the market a batch of avocados from Peru that, as notified by the Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF) on 21 March, contained cadmium levels above the MRL allowed in the European Union. According to the notification, classified as severe, the avocados had 0.054 mg/kg - ppm of cadmium, when the maximum level allowed is 0.05 mg/kg - ppm.
Luis Gomero, president of the Peruvian Agroecological Consortium (CAP), said this posed a risk for Peru's agro-export industry and its image in European markets, but, most importantly, for local consumers who are unaware of what they are consuming.
“Cadmium is a heavy metal and its effects on health have been widely documented. That's one of the reasons why international trade authorities have set maximum limits for it. Its presence has generated a lot of concern among cocoa farmers, and now among avocado producers, a crop that is growing significantly in a number of hectares nationwide."
How did the cadmium get into the avocados?
According to Gomero, there are up to four sources of contamination of this toxic heavy metal even in very small concentrations, which should be immediately tracked by the National Agrarian Health Service (Senasa) of the Ministry of Agrarian Development and Irrigation (Midagri).
“There are different sources. It may be because the plantations are near a mining activity or because the soil is contaminated with this heavy metal and the plants are taking it up. Another possibility is that producers are making massive applications of pesticides. A final unlikely option is that producers use fertilizers containing cadmium, but that usually happens under tropical conditions with the use of phosphate rock,” Gomero stated.
"We urgently need to trace where that batch of avocados found in the Netherlands came from, and SENASA needs to find out what is happening."
"Agro-exports are important for the country's economy and the sector should take every precaution possible before planting their crops. Producers should carry out a thorough study of soils, not only to see how fertile they are but also to find out if there are heavy metals there," he stressed.
