Naturally, farmers rarely have reason to be completely satisfied. Sometimes it is too cold, sometimes too hot, sometimes it is too dry, sometimes too wet. This summer it is definitely too humid, for example for the fruit growers on Lake Constance. The wet weather has led to an “increased fungal infestation”, complains Dieter Mainberger, himself a fruit grower and head of the local farmers’ association in Tettnang. This in turn leads to ugly scab on the fruit or, in the case of severe fungal infestation, to its spoilage. More plant protection – that is “the only viable way to save the farms’ harvest”, believes Mainberger. But that is easy to say, especially when it comes to apples in and around Tettnang.
The area is not only known for its fruit, but also for the Tettnang hops. This in turn is mainly exported to Japan and the USA, where there is a zero-tolerance policy against residues of the pesticide captan – a common agent against fungal infections. Because the wind can also carry the agent to the hops, it is taboo in the orchards of the area. In July, the Federal Office of Consumer Protection and Food Safety (BVL) therefore issued an emergency approval for a different active ingredient: folpet. In the last phase before the harvest, at least in this region, apples can still be sprayed with it – and heavily at that. “At this stage of the scab’s development, milder measures are no longer possible,” says the Federal Ministry of Agriculture.
The only problem is that there is a strict maximum limit for folpet residues in apples: 0.3 milligrams per kilo; this applies throughout the EU. But there is an answer to this too, it is seven pages long and is currently being consulted with countries and associations: a regulation to temporarily raise the limit to six milligrams. That would be a factor of 20. Is that still healthy? The Federal Office for Risk Assessment was consulted on this, according to the Ministry of Agriculture. And it found that, given the specifications for the use of the substance, “an acute health risk for consumers is practically impossible.”
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However, in the sprayed apples, consumers have to Germany, because they are no longer suitable for export – after all, the EU’s maximum values continue to apply everywhere else. And fruit growers should only use the fungicide if the limit values are really changed in time, warns the Bodenseekreis plant protection service. If that doesn’t happen, treated apples would be “legally unmarketable and would have to be destroyed when they leave the farm.”
Apples with scab, on the other hand, are not popular with retailers. They are considered second-class, although they taste just like any other apple beyond the external blemish. Instead of being sold at the fruit counter, they often end up in cider. This is also a thorn in the side of environmentalists, who consider folpet to be poisonous and possibly carcinogenic. “Retailers prefer the Snow White apple,” says Corinna Hölzel, pesticide expert at the environmental association BUND, “nice on the outside but poisonous on the inside.”