Tribune. If the government’s nutritional policy recommends, in particular through the National Health Nutrition Program (PNNS), to move towards organic food for plant products, it is because the exposure of the population to pesticides is a major concern. of public health and that it is absolutely necessary to act to reduce it.
We, health professionals, nutritionists, scientists, health and food specialists, ask the Ministry of Agriculture and Food to prioritize in the common agricultural policy (CAP) the drastic reduction of pesticides in production and in food by promoting the development of organic farming.
Studies show a general impregnation of the population, including the fetus (2013 InVS data, supplemented by those of the cohorts Pelagic and Elf), by pesticides. As we know, the main sources of exposure are food and drink (Inserm 2013, “pesticides and health” collective expertise).
In France, half of non-organic food contains pesticide residues, three on average (reports on food contamination by pesticides: DGCCRF, France, 2016 and EFSA, European Union, 2018), 60% of which are suspected of being endocrine disruptors. The first victims are of course agricultural professionals and their children, for whom exposure and therefore the consequences are greater (collective expert assessment “Pesticides: effects on health”, Inserm, 2013; ” Cancer incidence in the AGRICAN cohort study (2005-2011) », Clémentine Lemarchand et al., Cancer Epidemiology, n ° 49, 2017, p. 175-185).
Reduction of overweight
A growing body of evidence suggests that organic food is better for human health. It drastically reduces exposure to pesticides (” Detection of glyphosate residues in animals and humans », Monika Krüger et al., Journal of Environmental & Analytical Toxicology, 2014 ; “Urinary pesticide concentrations in French adults with low and high organic food consumption: results from the general population-based NutriNet-Santé”, Julia Baudry et al., Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology, 2019; “Improvement of diet sustainability with increased level of organic food in the diet: findings from the BioNutriNet cohort”, Julia Baudry et al., The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 2019; “Sustainability analysis of French dietary guidelines using multiple criteria”, Emmanuelle Kesse-Guyot et al., Nature Sustainability, 2020), 85% to 95% of organic products contain no residue and organic processed foods contain 90% less additives and processing aids than conventional ones.
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