zemeunvalsts.lv commentary

A clear, broad, and understandable assessment of the situation is, unfortunately, often lacking in the Latvian media. Furthermore, C19, or war, or refugees, or rising prices have not eliminated the need for someone to point things out. Step by step, the public broadcaster is preparing the ground for a scenario where a significant number of people in Latvia will be unable to afford certain food products or food at all. It sounds harsh, but before getting worked up about pesticides, it would be worth determining (which has not been done) whether farmers will be able to provide for everyone without them, or only a select portion of Latvia's residents, with the latter certainly including the authors of similar reports...

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Inese Mārtiņsone, leading researcher and head of the Laboratory of Hygiene and Occupational Diseases, acknowledged: "Against the backdrop of this study we conducted, against the background of a screening study from five countries—namely, Hungary, the Netherlands, Spain, the Czech Republic, and we, Latvia, are the fifth—if we look at the human composition, what is inside a person in terms of pesticides, pesticide residues, we are the cleanest."

She explained that it is critical to evaluate where the pesticide residues in the population come from—whether from local or foreign agricultural produce. "There is most certainly a link between pesticide residues that could be ingested through citrus fruits. There are pesticide residues that could be, well, that are used for the maintenance of grapevines. So, these are grapes that automatically show up in our people," the researcher pointed out.

Of the eight pesticide residues discovered in the bodies of people in Latvia in the study, half are not linked to Latvian farmers. "There are also four compounds that would be attributable to grains, grain crops," Mārtiņsone noted. (...)