The federal government has no suitable data source for monitoring the effect of agricultural and veterinary chemicals on humans, a new report commissioned by the Department of Agriculture has found.
The report also found data on pesticides in the environment was very local and generally just a “snapshot in time”.
“Workplace health and safety regulators were not able to provide useful information about workers exposure to agvet chemicals,” the research found.
“Similarly, those public health authorities who responded to inquiries did not hold useful information about human exposure to agvet chemicals.”
Agricultural and veterinary (agvet) chemicals are used to protect crops, livestock and domestic animals; safeguard the environment from weeds and pests; and meet consumer needs for things such as insecticides and pool chemicals.
The report confirms that Australia lacks basic data to assess the effect of agricultural chemicals on the environment and human health. Only one study on human bio-monitoring was found, dating back to 2005.
There are also no national sources of data on pesticides in groundwater, urban stormwater, drinking water, soil, or in wildlife, the researchers found.
The only long-term monitoring of pesticides in the environment was as part of the protection of the Barrier Reef and it was limited to 22 pesticides.
Monitoring of pesticides in food is better, the researchers said, thanks to the long-running National Residue Survey for exported meat and some agricultural products and the Total Diet Survey, which last screened for pesticides in 2019.
But the researchers noted monitoring of domestically sold fruit and vegetables, conducted by fresh food markets and supermarket chains, was confidential.
Authorities have repeatedly pointed to these surveys as the safeguard for Australian consumers. But no results or methodology is available publicly.
The researchers said other countries including the Netherlands, the UK and the US had government-run national produce surveys which report publicly each year on pesticides in food.
A spokesperson for the minister for agriculture, Murray Watt, said: “The government is currently considering the report and will have more to say in the coming months.”
Matt Landos, a member of consumer advocate group National Toxics Network and an associate researcher at the University of Sydney, said the report highlighted the lack of data on the impact of use of pesticides was disturbing.
He said that without data to perform risk assessments and reviews of agvet products, the pesticides regulator, the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority was engaging in guesswork when it approved products.
“The existence and quality of that data is paramount. The report shows there is no human data monitored and only scant measurement of food and the environment,” he said.
The Guardian has reported extensively on the use and regulation of agvet chemicals in Australia which raise serious questions about how it can make claims that it is “a clean and green” producer of food.
It comes as the European environment agency released a report last week saying that widespread pesticide use in Europe “is a major source of pollution – contaminating water, soil and air, driving biodiversity loss and leading to pest resistance.”
“Human exposure to chemical pesticides is linked to chronic illnesses, such as cancer, and heart, respiratory and neurological diseases,” it said.
A large-scale human biomonitoring study conducted between 2014 and 2021 across five European countries found at least two pesticides present in the bodies of 84% of survey participants.
It is impossible to say whether Australia is worse or better than Europe because such data is simply not available in Australia.
However, as the Guardian reported last year, there are at least 70 chemicals that are either banned or no longer registered in Europe, which are still in use in Australia.
Globally, Australia is one of the heavier users of pesticides in food production. This is partly because of Australia’s unique conditions and farming methods. But even these statistics are hard to find.
“Australian pesticide use reporting is limited to the annual report of product sales data by the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority generated by registrant reporting to the regulator,” the researchers said.
“This is, however, de-identified … to ensure individual product holders or companies are not identifiable, ” they said.
By contrast, other countries require farmers to keep records and in some cases report on their chemical usage.
The Department of Agriculture defended the current system.
“The department will use the findings of this report to inform future policy work to improve the agvet chemicals regulatory system, such as opportunities for improving the connection and monitoring of these programs,” a spokesperson said.
Croplife Australia, which represents the major agricultural and veterinary chemical companies in Australia said the “report reinforces the primacy of independent, data-driven and risk-based regulation of pesticides in Australia, as assessed by the APVMA”.
