Fruit and vegetables not contaminated

I refer to Kenneth Zammit Tabona's article Bird Flu vs Cancer? (January 10) and cannot but comment about the irresponsible insinuations he made with regard to fruit and vegetables being contaminated with pesticides.

Mr Zammit Tabona should have checked his facts first. Local farmers have enough of a problem trying to make a living at present.

They can do without such comments, which could very well induce people to stay away from local produce. That is of course assuming that Mr Zammit Tabona was referring to local products, since he did not specify.

To put his and the rest of the consumers' minds at rest, I shall once again repeat what I have been stating for years.

For many years and on a very regular basis, the authorities have been taking random samples of fruit and vegetables from the Pitkali market and sending them to a laboratory in Bari, Italy.

To date, there has not been one negative result. On the contrary, the information I have is that the great majority of products tested have had no trace of chemical residues, a lesser majority had negligible amounts of residues and the worst cases found were still below EU tolerance levels.

I appeal to the competent authorities to confirm this and raise awareness about it because, despite my endeavours, it seems that there are still people out there reaching Mr Zammit Tabona's conclusion.

While his preoccupations are fully appreciated, I can assure him that the farming community is taking steps.

A typical example is that for farmers to qualify for aid, be it from the EU, the government or a mixture of both, in most cases the authorities have to be satisfied that the farmer in question is following "good agricultural practices" before considering his application for aid.