The Moroccan National Health Security Office (Onssa) has assured today that it has taken “measures” against those responsible for the export of watermelons with excess methomyl traces to the European Union (EU) by suspending their sanitary licenses and export. In this way, the North African country comes out of the health alert launched a few days ago by the European Commission (EC) on the presence of watermelons from Morocco with traces of this pesticide above the permitted levels that would have arrived in Spain.
“It has been possible to identify the field in question and track the shipment of exported watermelons, and investigations have been carried out to determine the marketing channel for the pesticide,” sources from this office explained to EFE, who also assured that they have suspended the health license for the watermelon packaging unit and the export license for the person responsible for shipping this product to the EU. In addition, they ensure that it is a single load of watermelons and “not all exports destined for this market” while they stressed that since the beginning of 2023 Morocco has only registered five notifications on fruits and vegetables out of a total of 497 alerts issued by this system on vegetables and fruits imported into Europe from the rest of the producing regions.
The health alarm occurred on the 14th and then had an update on the 20th, according to the consumer organization Facua, which assured that excess methomyl can cause serious symptoms of intoxication in some cases such as “headache, dizziness, nausea, vomiting, excessive sweating, tremors, and blurred vision. Mixing this substance with alcohol consumption can impact the central and peripheral nervous system, as well as cause kidney failure.
The intercepted Moroccan watermelons contained traces of an insecticide in a proportion higher than that allowed in the European market, specifically in a proportion of 0.38/-0.19 mg/kg-ppm, when their Maximum Residue Limit (MRL) , is set to 0.015 mg/kg-ppm. Thus, it was the European rapid alert system for food and feed (RASFF) that reported the detection at border control of a batch of watermelons from Morocco in which a high level of this substance was found, despite what which shipment was released. This European system described the incidence as “serious” and claimed to be unaware of the places where the affected watermelons were distributed.
This problem comes in a month of July where there has been a significant drop in the production of watermelons and melons in Spain due to the weather problems suffered during the cultivation of this fruit. In addition to the drought of the last season, significant hail storms were added in May that destroyed crops in one of the most productive areas of the country, Levante, which has caused significant shortages on the shelves this summer (an admitted problem , for example, by Mercadona) in addition to a significant rise in prices.
The watermelon from Morocco is one of the first to be placed in the Spanish markets, just after the one from Senegal and Brazil that arrive during the winter, according to Cristóbal Jiménez, president of the Castilla-La Interprofessional Melon and Watermelon Association. Mancha, which establishes the month of March as the month that usually appears in Spanish supermarkets, when the first Spanish crops, from the Almería area, have not finished bearing fruit. “They are longer pieces that any regular consumer can distinguish, also due to their shine and skin, but the legislation requires that the origin of the country from which they come must appear on the label,” he underlines.
Last season, between January 1 and June 30, 2022, Spain broke the historical record in the purchase of watermelon from other countries, mainly from Morocco, with 84% of the total, with 106.79 kilos worth total of 74.87 million euros and at an average price of 0.7 euros per kilo. Senegal appeared a long way behind, the second supplier of watermelon to Spain in the first semester, with 3.54 million kilos, purchased for a total value of 2.31 million euros.
The agricultural agreement signed in January 2012 between the EU and Morocco for the importation of fruit and vegetables has since then led to an increase in imports, especially watermelon, peppers and tomatoes, to the national market, although Spanish farmers Since then, they have questioned the level of traceability used in the cultivation of these fruits in their country of origin, according to Cristóbal Jiménez.
Specifically, in the last decade it has gone from 435 to 122,000 tons received, according to data from the Federation of Fruit and Vegetable Producers (Fepex). Morocco’s watermelon exports to the EU almost doubled between 2019 and 2022, from around 149,000 kilograms to 270,000 kilograms. However, supplies from Spain dropped from 681,000 in 2019 to 520,000 in 2022. Morocco, despite suffering from a huge drought problem, is already the leading exporter of watermelons to Europe. The sector also complains about the loss of competitiveness of Spanish products, as labor is much more expensive than in Morocco, for example.
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