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Why Is It So Hard to Make Vegan Fish?

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Tuesday, February 28, 2023

Futuristic food science technology could finally bring plant-based salmon filets and tuna steaks to the table

Futuristic food science technology could finally bring plant-based salmon filets and tuna steaks to the table

Futuristic food science technology could finally bring plant-based salmon filets and tuna steaks to the table

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Cancer: how it’s caused by food and water contamination

Contamination of food and water is a global public health concern – researchers are studying how it causes cancer. Arsenic is a naturally occurring element found in the Earth’s crust. Exposure to arsenic, often through contaminated food and water, is associated with various negative health effects, including cancer. Arsenic exposure is a global public health […] The post Cancer: how it’s caused by food and water contamination appeared first on SAPeople - Worldwide South African News.

Contamination of food and water is a global public health concern – researchers are studying how it causes cancer. Arsenic is a naturally occurring element found in the Earth’s crust. Exposure to arsenic, often through contaminated food and water, is associated with various negative health effects, including cancer. Arsenic exposure is a global public health issue. A 2020 study estimated that up to 200 million people worldwide are exposed to arsenic-contaminated drinking water at levels above the legal limit of 10 parts per billion set by the U.S. ALSO READ: Cough syrup can harm children: Contamination risks ALSO READ: Unsafe foods and food contamination: Understanding the risks Environmental Protection Agency and World Health Organization. More than 70 countries are affected, including the United States, Spain, Mexico, Japan, India, China, Canada, Chile, Bangladesh, Bolivia and Argentina. Since many countries are still affected by high levels of arsenic, we believe arsenic exposure is a global public health issue that requires urgent action. We study how exposure to toxic metals like arsenic can lead to cancer through the formation of cancer stem cells. Arsenic water contamination predominantly affects communities of colour in the U.S. ARSENIC CONTAMINATION OF FOOD AND WATER Your body can absorb arsenic through several routes, such as inhalation and skin contact. However, the most common source of arsenic exposure is through contaminated drinking water or food. People who live in areas with naturally high levels of arsenic in the soil and water are at particular risk. In the U.S., for example, that includes regions in the Southwest such as Arizona, Nevada and New Mexico. Additionally, human activities such as mining and agriculture can also increase arsenic in food and water sources. ALSO READ: R430 million ‘decontamination’: Gauteng Education contracts NULLIFIED ALSO READ: EThekwini Municipality disputes contamination and poor quality claims High levels of arsenic can also be found in food and drink products, particularly rice and rice-based products like rice cereals and crackers. A 2019 Consumer Reports investigation even found that some brands of bottled water sold in the U.S. contained levels of arsenic that exceeded the legal limit. Alarmingly, multiple studies have also found that several popular baby food brands contained arsenic at concentrations much higher than the legal limit. ARSENIC AND CANCER STEM CELLS Chronic exposure to arsenic increases the risk of developing multiple types of cancer. The mechanisms by which arsenic causes cancer are complex and not yet fully understood. However, research suggests that arsenic can damage DNA, disrupt cell signalling pathways and impair the immune system, all of which can contribute to cancer development. The image on the left shows ovarian epithelial cells under normal conditions. The image on the right shows the cells after three weeks of chronic arsenic exposure at 75 parts per billion.  Scientists have also linked chronic arsenic exposure to the development of cancer stem cells. These are cells within tumours thought to be responsible for cancer growth and spread. Like normal stem cells in the body, cancer stem cells can develop into many different types of cells. At what stage of cellular development a stem cell acquires the genetic mutation that turns it into a cancer stem cell remains unknown. Our research aims to identify what type of cell arsenic targets to form a cancer stem cell. We are currently using cell cultures obtained from the same organ at different stages of cellular development to examine how the origins of cells affect the formation of cancer stem cells. Preventing chronic arsenic exposure is critical to reducing the burden of arsenic-related health effects. Further research is needed to understand arsenic-induced cancer stem cell formation and develop effective strategies to prevent it. In the meantime, continued monitoring and regulation of this toxic metal in food and water sources could help improve the health of affected communities. The post Cancer: how it’s caused by food and water contamination appeared first on SAPeople - Worldwide South African News.

Today is World Food Safety Day

World Food Safety Day which is commemorated annually on 7 June –  throws the spotlight on food safety awareness and the steps required to prevent, detect and manage foodborne risks and illnesses. Food safety refers to handling, preparing, transporting and storing of foodstuffs in a way that best reduces the risk of persons becoming sick […] The post Today is World Food Safety Day appeared first on SAPeople - Worldwide South African News.

World Food Safety Day which is commemorated annually on 7 June –  throws the spotlight on food safety awareness and the steps required to prevent, detect and manage foodborne risks and illnesses. Food safety refers to handling, preparing, transporting and storing of foodstuffs in a way that best reduces the risk of persons becoming sick from foodborne illnesses. It is a global concern and covers a variety of different areas throughout the entire food supply chain, from farm to factory to fork. All members of the food supply chain must comply with established standards and legislation to maintain food safety. This includes proper handling and thorough cooking of foodstuff, keeping foodstuff at the correct temperature, preventing cross-contamination through proper separation of raw and cooked foodstuffs and always using clean, safe water and raw materials to limit risk. The use of clean equipment and utensils is a must as well, as is the continuous practice of proper handwashing and good housekeeping. ‘Food is such a critical part of our daily lives, but to many, food safety isn’t something that is top of mind. We take a lot for granted in this space, but there are actually very rigorous demands placed on everyone, from producers to retailers and fast food outlets, to you and I at home, in ensuring that what we serve is safe for consumption. The load-shedding crisis has caused additional challenges, particularly around maintaining the cold chain and the risk of food spoiling, and the recent cholera outbreak in parts of the country too has amplified the continued need for vigilance in food handling,’ said Mayoral Committee Member for Community Services and Health, Councillor Patricia Van der Ross. Cholera can be contracted by ingesting water or food contaminated with human faeces. The World Health Organisation’s five keys to safer food help mitigate the risk of cholera or any other foodborne illnesses:  Keep clean: Keep hands, surfaces and equipment clean. Separate raw and cooked: Store raw and cooked food in separate containers and use separate utensils and equipment for raw and cooked food.  Cook thoroughly: Cook all foods thoroughly and reheat to piping hot before serving.  Keep food at safe temperatures: Store and thaw foods in the fridge.  Use safe water and raw food: Fresh fruit, vegetables and pasteurised milk. ‘The City’s Environmental Health Practitioners conduct thousands of inspections at food-related premises every year, enforcing standards to help reduce the risk of foodborne and waterborne illnesses, and we commend their efforts. Add to that the hundreds of education and awareness outreaches, and we start seeing just how seriously they take food safety, and how important it is for all of us to pay attention and implement the safety measures in our kitchens,’ added Councillor Van der Ross. The role and scope of Environmental Health Practitioners in ensuring food safety and food standards include: Licencing and certification of food premises  Inspection, monitoring and auditing of food premises  Implementation and enforcement of food legislation relating to foodstuffs and the hygiene requirements/standards of food premises Sampling of various foodstuffs for microbiological and chemical compliance  Advise, guide and train the food industry, retailers and consumers regarding relevant food legislative requirements  Act on foodstuffs-related eventualities such as recalls, suspected food poisoning cases and investigation of foodstuffs-related complaints  Implement legal action in all cases of legislative non-compliance  Ensuring foodstuffs offered for sale are fit for human consumption and authentic  Issuing of health certification for export A comprehensive list of food safety tips and managing the impacts of load-shedding is available here: https://bit.ly/3K0Idq3 The post Today is World Food Safety Day appeared first on SAPeople - Worldwide South African News.

Pesticide-Coated Seeds Are the Focus of a New Push for EPA Regulations

“Crucially, there’s mounting evidence from various studies of the harms that are happening directly from the use of neonics on coated seeds,” says Amy van Saun of Center for Food Safety (CFS), one of the lead attorneys on the case. “Neonics,” short for neonicotinoids, are insecticides that are already registered under the federal law that […] The post Pesticide-Coated Seeds Are the Focus of a New Push for EPA Regulations appeared first on Civil Eats.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) failure to effectively regulate seeds coated with highly toxic pesticides violates federal pesticide laws and is devastating pollinators, wildlife, and landscapes across the country, according to environmental groups who filed a lawsuit last week. “Crucially, there’s mounting evidence from various studies of the harms that are happening directly from the use of neonics on coated seeds,” says Amy van Saun of Center for Food Safety (CFS), one of the lead attorneys on the case. “Neonics,” short for neonicotinoids, are insecticides that are already registered under the federal law that controls pesticide use. During registration, the EPA assesses a pesticide’s ingredients, how and where it will be used, and risks associated with the proposed use, and then determines labeling requirements. The EPA has long argued that regulation is enough for neonics, but unlike other pesticides, which are primarily sprayed on crops, the vast majority of neonic use involves companies coating seeds before they’re planted. And those seeds are not registered as pesticides. Farmers now plant pesticide-coated seeds on more than 100 million cropland acres across the country; some estimate that 80 to 100 percent of corn acreage is planted with treated seed. As they grow, plants absorb some of the chemical coating, making their tissues toxic to pests. However, most of the coating—at least 90 percent—sloughs off the seeds, contaminating surrounding vegetation, soil, and waterways. A Civil Eats investigation last year following an environmental disaster in Mead, Nebraska, also found that the EPA is not regulating what happens to unused, expired coated seeds. The chemical coating can make its way into the environment during the disposal process, too. As a result, many experts and advocates consider the fact that seeds are not registered as pesticides to be a loophole in the law. In 2017, CFS and Pesticide Action Network North America filed a petition asking EPA to close it. In 2021, the agency denied the petition. In response, the groups filed last week’s lawsuit. And in the years since the initial 2017 petition, evidence for how neonicotinoids harm pollinators and disrupt the functioning of entire ecosystems has continued to pile up. Last June, the EPA’s own evaluations found that the three most commonly used neonicotinoids are “likely to adversely affect” up to 75 percent of endangered species in the U.S. and also threaten habitats critical to many species’ survival. Then, last month, the agency released an analysis reiterating the likely harm to more than 1,000 species, including bats, butterflies, cranes, and turtles. For more than 200 of those species, the EPA found, the chemicals pose an existential threat. All of that evidence will be considered during a registration review of the chemicals due by 2026. In the meantime, if the environmental groups win this case in court, a few key things will change, van Saun explains. EPA officials would have to more thoroughly consider how the seeds are impacting the environment and could propose mitigation measures. Coated seeds would also be subject to more serious labeling requirements that detail both proper use and disposal. And most significantly, during the registration process, the agency would have to directly apply its pesticide cost-benefit analysis to each seed product. “If they’re going to register a product, say a certain corn seed coated with clothianidin, they’d have to look at the adverse effects and weigh them against the supposed benefits,” van Saun says. “And a lot of what we’ve seen . . . is that some of the benefits are nonexistent.” For example, one 2020 analysis done in New York found that while fruit and vegetable farmers spraying neonics often had few other options to control threats to their crops, farmers planting corn and soybean seeds coated with neonics realized little to no yield or income benefits as a result. “So [the EPA] would have to weigh all of the harms, which are so obvious now, against little to no benefit. And that would mean that hopefully a lot of the products wouldn’t meet the safety standard of ‘not causing unreasonable adverse effects to the environment,’ and therefore wouldn’t be registered at all,” van Saun says. “That would, of course, be our hope—that there would be a really big reduction of this use.” Read More: Beyond Bees, Neonics Damage Ecosystems—and a Push for Policy Change Is Coming When Seeds Become Toxic Waste What the Insect Crisis Means for Food, Farming, and Humanity Hunger Politics. While the debt ceiling showdown is over, it now appears that lawmakers will continue to debate expanding work requirements within the country’s largest federal food assistance program as part of ongoing farm bill negotiations. After considerable back and forth, last week’s final deal to avert government default included both increasing the age limit to include more people in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) work requirements and exempting specific groups, including veterans and individuals experiencing homelessness. The Congressional Budget Office predicted that the changes would actually increase spending on SNAP—despite Republicans’ claims that they would save money—although some experts and hunger groups disputed the agency’s findings. Earlier in the process, some lawmakers indicated that negotiating the requirements during the debt ceiling process would settle the issue before they turned their attention to the farm bill; Senate Agriculture Committee chair Debbie Stabenow (D-Michigan) said the conversation was “done.” However, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-California) treated the negotiation as a starting point, saying, “Let’s get the rest of the work requirements.” More clarity on the path ahead should emerge during a House Agriculture Committee hearing scheduled for today. In a statement expressing opposition to SNAP cuts included in the debt ceiling bill, Lisa Davis, senior vice president of anti-hunger organization Share Our Strength and the No Kid Hungry campaign, said she was concerned that the legislation “codifies a shift in the purpose of SNAP to be a program that prioritizes penalties and time limits, not improving nutrition outcomes.” “We shouldn’t be playing politics with programs that help Americans meet their basic needs,” Davis added. Read More: Former SNAP Recipient Calls for Expanded Benefits in Next Farm Bill This Farm Bill Really Matters. We Explain Why. States Are Fighting to Bring Back Free School Meals Fertilizer Cartel? Families struggling to put food on the table may get some relief this month as food inflation has finally begun to cool off over the last several months. But a new report calls attention to one under-the-radar contributor to the high prices that have been hurting Americans for the last several years: fertilizer companies. The analysis, by the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, found that the world’s biggest fertilizer companies increased their total profits and profit margins exponentially over the last two years. During this time frame, farmers struggled to pay high prices for fertilizer, and those input costs drove up prices for consumers, increasing food insecurity. Between 2020 and 2022, the top nine companies quadrupled their profits, and their profit margins increased by about 15 percent. It’s yet another data snapshot that contributes to a growing picture of how corporate profiteering has fueled inflation under the guise of supply chain disruptions caused by factors including COVID-19 and the war in Ukraine. To that end, industry publication Poultry World this week shared a detailed analysis of how the avian flu outbreak impacted the egg industry during 2022 and how much its effects were linked to rising egg prices. The analysis showed the complexity of teasing out factors that drive price increases. For example, avian flu killed 44 million egg-laying hens in 2022, with major losses in specific states including Colorado and Iowa. And the prices companies paid at the farm gate rose exponentially throughout the year. But throughout the country, egg production only dropped 1.7 percent, while retail egg prices increased more than 200 percent. Read More: Food Prices Are Still High. What Role Do Corporate Profits Play? Op-Ed: Food Price Spikes Are About a Lot More Than Ukraine The post Pesticide-Coated Seeds Are the Focus of a New Push for EPA Regulations appeared first on Civil Eats.

Tamar Adler Teaches Home Cooks to Turn Food Waste Into Dinner

Over a decade later, Adler is back with the Everlasting Meal Cookbook: Leftovers A-Z—a guide on how to turn meager leftovers into new and tastier dishes that will appeal to everyone who prides themselves on making use of all the food they buy. Adler’s creative salvaging knows no bounds. In her entry for almond butter is […] The post Tamar Adler Teaches Home Cooks to Turn Food Waste Into Dinner appeared first on Civil Eats.

Tamar Adler’s 2012 book An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace was a lyrical ode to frugality in the kitchen that made a mark at a time when the national conversation about food waste—and the need to reduce it—was just picking up speed. Over a decade later, Adler is back with the Everlasting Meal Cookbook: Leftovers A-Z—a guide on how to turn meager leftovers into new and tastier dishes that will appeal to everyone who prides themselves on making use of all the food they buy. Adler’s creative salvaging knows no bounds. In her entry for almond butter is a recipe for “Empty Jar Nut Butter Noodles,” which you make by swishing hot water, fish sauce, lime juice, and some added ingredients around in a nearly empty jar of nut butter. Then, viola: You have a sauce for noodles! In fact, Adler’s section on ”empty containers” might just revolutionize how you use up the very last bits of everything from mustard to maple syrup. Each chapter is devoted to a different food group or type of dish: vegetables come first, then fruits and nuts, then dairy and eggs, soup, salads, drinks, and so on. But within each chapter, Adler organizes each entry rather unconventionally by leftover ingredient. Under “Apples, old” she has recipes for apple cider vinegar, applesauce, apple scrap vinegar, and apple twigs (dehydrated apple peels, which makes a good children’s snack). Under “mushroom soup,” she has a recipe for mushroom pasta sauce. Under “brine, mozzarella, or feta,” she counsels her readers in how to use the brine (with a little water and sugar) to marinade chicken thighs or pork chops in. Under “broccoli stems and leaves” she shares a recipe for garlicky stem and core pesto. And on and on. A lot of the ideas in here are things our grandparents might have done without thinking—like baking fruit crisps with overripe or bruised berries, making croutons from stale bread, and rice pudding from day-old rice. But Adler, who is a contributing editor at Vogue, has done her readers an enormous service by recording these wise, frugal recipes in one place. Nearly 40 percent of the food we buy gets tossed out, and that waste is responsible for a full 8 percent of all human-caused greenhouse gases. With that tragic reality in mind—and with food prices higher than ever—we spoke with Adler about her book, her philosophy, and some of her best tips for treating old and leftover food with the respect it deserves. How did you get interested in salvaging older food? Not everyone is brought up that way. It was a combination of influences. My mom was definitely a big saver and storer of things. We always had beans and rice cooked ahead in the fridge. She made croutons out of stale bread. So there was some osmosis, certainly. And the restaurants that I worked in were all really diligent about saving things. I think it is largely a misconception that restaurants are wasteful. It is true that when a diner doesn’t finish what they eat, it has to get thrown away. But cooks—if not restaurants—know what to do with everything [else]. A lot of the circular, ongoing, everlasting cooking is what feeds most restaurant staffs. So, I was exposed to it at Prune and at Chez Panisse. We kept things, re-used and repurposed—as much out of culinary motivation as environmental motivation. Most cuisines in the world do a good deal of saving, revisioning, and repurposing. I learned to look at food at various stages along its arc, because that is how you learn to cook Italian, French, and Middle Eastern food. I think when people don’t know [how to repurpose ingredients], it’s a gap in their education. I never thought of myself as a super scrappy saver person. It was just cooking. You counsel readers to trust their senses. In the entry on moldy cheese you write, “I cut the moldy bits off cheese and taste what remains. If my visceral self revolts at what I’ve tasted, I sigh and discard. If it calmly bears up, I use what’s left as planned.” You also write about using spoiled buttermilk “unless it’s growing vicious green or blue mold.” Why do you think Americans are so quick to toss “expired” food out? I think people do it because they are trying to protect themselves and their families. It hasn’t been made very clear that expiration dates don’t [typically] refer to the safety of food. [And “Best by” dates never do.] People are relying on something that is explicitly not designed to inform them about safety. That’s a problem with messaging. And it ends up working to the advantage of businesses that are selling food. People are forever throwing out things without actually contemplating what’s inside the containers. What if instead of saying “May 14, 2023,” there were three recipes for what to do with your milk on your milk container? “If your milk starts to smell sour, here’s a biscuit recipe.” I appreciate that you remind people to trust their palate throughout the book. We don’t have home economics classes in schools anymore, so we’re really just relying on knowledge passed on from family members or friends.  I would like to have a help line! I would need a liability waiver—but I would be totally happy to get texts asking, “Is this okay?” at all hours. But I also think the visible food mold tends not to be the stuff that causes the really bad food-borne illness anymore. There have been huge recalls of ground beef, spinach, and romaine—and that’s not mold. Those are things that come through complicated supply chains—where there are lot of opportunities for contamination. So, we should be more scared of complicated and untraceable supply chains and less scared of things sitting out overnight. There are orders of magnitude of difference in risk. It’s totally understandable to not want to get sick, to not want your family to get sick. But it’s misdirected. We should be much more scared of these highly complex industrial supply chains and much less scared of aging food. I know I should trust my visceral self, but now I’m going to pretend I’m calling your hotline. One thing I’m always wary about is already-opened canned tuna fish.  If it’s not moldy but it’s been in the fridge a week, is it still safe to eat? Taste it! I don’t know when we started imagining that our taste buds were these precious temples that must never be transgressed. If I’m putting away canned tuna—I buy it packed in olive oil and make sure that it’s coated in olive oil, as that will help preserve it—I taste a little bit. If it tastes fizzy, compost it! If it doesn’t, eat it. Your mouth cannot be like this inviolable shrine! What’s the worst thing that could happen? You’ll spit it out! You’ll just spit it out. We can do that, you know? Some of your recipes didn’t surprise me, but others, like leftover scrambled eggs for fried rice, broccoli stem pesto, and hummus soup, did. How did you come up with most of these recipes? A lot of times I just adapted something that I’d eaten or tasted in some other environment or culture to whatever I had in front of me. A lot of it was seeing what is there as opposed to what is not there. Which sounds like a Zen koan, but it’s actually true. Maybe this is a particular form of optimism that is mine alone—but I’m conscious of the fact that there are so many ways to cook an egg and then combine it with other things. So if you just take the mental leap of, “I have already cooked the egg,” then you are halfway to whatever the next thing is. I’m not sentimental—I just don’t like disposing of things. I imagine that everything has some kind of spirit or purpose. I’m looking for ways to use things, because they’re there and I care about them for being there. And I’m lucky enough to have a lot of culinary knowledge, which means I can make something good. Another thing I love is that your re-use ideas extend to non-culinary purposes. Pistachio shells make good mulch, you suggest, or filler for the bottom of a potted plant. Peanut shells make good kitty litter. Pomegranate piths and skins can be dried and ground into a powder and made into a facial with yogurt. What other non-food uses might we have missed? I have avocado pit and peel dye. Onion peel can also be used for dye. Obviously beet peels can be used as dye for cloth and Easter eggs. At one point I made lip gloss out of leftover Kool-Aid! But I cut it from the book, because I didn’t think leftover Kool-Aid was that much of a problem. In the acknowledgements you thank a colleague for tasting all your creations and allow that bacon shortbread was perhaps a bad use of leftover bacon. Were there any other leftover-reuse fails?   There were a lot of failures that didn’t make it into the book. I made something really bad out of melon rinds. I made a really gross kasha cake. I sent it to the recipe tester with a note saying, “This is mediocre.” And they wrote back, “I thought I was prepared for the mediocrity of this cake, but in fact, nothing could’ve prepared me for how mediocre this cake was.” So that went out. There was a donut bread—poached bread dumplings made out of cider donuts—that somebody wrote a scathing review of. I’m glad I tried them so you didn’t have to. Throughout the book you talk about how much better things taste at room temperature and tell your readers not be afraid to leave things out. Why don’t we do this more in the U.S.? It feels like the absence of a culinary culture, right? We’re following recipes to make everything as opposed to following traditions. My father was Israeli. We always had hummus, tahina, olives, pickles, and stuffed grape leaves sitting at room temperature for a long time. Lots of families that have emigrated from other cultures and have brought their traditions with them have at least one thing in their house that is like that. But that’s not necessarily true if you’re from an equatorial cultures, where food actually spoils at room temperature in a dangerous way. If you’re from a Caribbean country, that culinary culture is not going to involve leaving food sitting at room temperature, unless it’s heavily bathed in vinegar and that’s where escabeche (marinated fish) comes from. Culinary traditions are about how to make things taste good and how to make gathering enjoyable for everybody; in the absence of that, there are rules. There are all kinds of rules that restaurants follow, for how cold things have to be and how hot they need to be. In the absence of culinary tradition, one turns again to what there is. But if you do have other input, because your family has a different tradition, you follow that. I’ve never had cold hummus in my house. The post Tamar Adler Teaches Home Cooks to Turn Food Waste Into Dinner appeared first on Civil Eats.

Costa Rica’s Agri-Food Sector and the European Green Deal

In a recent study conducted by Costa Rica’s Foreign Trade Promoter (PROCOMER), it has been highlighted that the European Green Deal will bring about challenges and necessitate changes in the country’s agri-food sector. The European Green Deal, introduced by the European Union in 2019, is a far-reaching geopolitical strategy aimed at achieving climate neutrality by […] The post Costa Rica’s Agri-Food Sector and the European Green Deal appeared first on The Tico Times | Costa Rica News | Travel | Real Estate.

In a recent study conducted by Costa Rica’s Foreign Trade Promoter (PROCOMER), it has been highlighted that the European Green Deal will bring about challenges and necessitate changes in the country’s agri-food sector. The European Green Deal, introduced by the European Union in 2019, is a far-reaching geopolitical strategy aimed at achieving climate neutrality by 2050. It sets out a clear path for various sectors, including energy, construction, mobility, and agriculture. According to the PROCOMER study, the Green Deal will establish standards for countries and industries to access the EU’s internal market. This means that many sectors, particularly agriculture, must enhance their competitiveness and embrace innovation. Hence, it is crucial for national companies to adequately prepare for these upcoming changes. One significant aspect highlighted in the report is the EU’s plan to reduce pesticide use by 50% by 2030. Consequently, the list of authorized chemicals will be significantly curtailed, and residue limits will undergo modifications. This shift will have a substantial impact on Costa Rican producers, particularly those in the coffee, palm oil, cocoa, and wood industries. They will be required to demonstrate that their lands are not contributing to deforestation and provide geolocation data. Marta Esquivel, Director of Planning and Business Intelligence at PROCOMER, emphasized the importance of keeping a close eye on the changes introduced by the European Green Deal. Timely monitoring will enable Costa Rica to respond effectively and avoid being caught off guard. Erick Apuy, another expert in the field, sees this as an opportunity for the country despite the initial challenges. Apuy believes that proper management will allow Costa Rica to benefit from and seize opportunities such as developing local productive chains in sectors like biocontrols and bioplastics. He also suggests that Costa Rican companies can occupy market space left behind by other countries due to their lower environmental competitiveness. By specializing as a country with green services, Costa Rica can position itself favorably in the global market. The European Green Deal presents both challenges and opportunities for Costa Rica’s agri-food sector. By anticipating and adequately preparing for the changes, the country can navigate this transition successfully. Embracing innovation, demonstrating environmental competitiveness, and exploring new avenues for green services will position Costa Rica as a key player in the evolving global market. The post Costa Rica’s Agri-Food Sector and the European Green Deal appeared first on The Tico Times | Costa Rica News | Travel | Real Estate.

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