Advice on vegetables from an ex-farmer...

After reading your proposal to buy organic produce, I would like to share some views on the issue of vegetables and toxins based on my experience as a vegetable farmer's son.

You mentioned that you met your farmer friend from Cameron Highlands. Well I was the first-born to a young farming couple from Cameron Highlands. We later moved to Penang but continued with vegetable farming to earn a living. Our farm was on a hill next to Penang Hill, no tram service there but mere leg power, as a lot of walking needed. We would plant long bean, French bean, snow pea, cucumber, choy-sum, kai-lan, chilli, bitter gourd, etc. I was there until I was in Form 4, already a well versed young farmer.

For this discussion, I would like to put the vege into two groups: the leafy vege, and the beans/"qua". Leafy vege are the choy-sums, kailans, etc. We eat the leaves. And "qua" are the cucumbers, bitter gourds, brinjals, etc. We eat the fruits.

And the chemical sprays are grouped into 2 categories also: the fungicides and the pesticides. As the name suggests, fungicides are used to protect the plant from fungus, and pesticides are to ward off pests like bugs, caterpillars, snails, etc. The main culprits are the caterpillars.

For the leafy vege, normally less sprays are needed. When they are "young" they usually don't need any sprays unless there is an outbreak of a fungus disease in the neighbourhood. In any case any spray at this young age is of lesser harmful effects because it would be many days later when it is consumed. The toxins could have long gone. But when the vege is maturing with many young leaves growing, farmers usually apply a round of pesticides to ward off the attack of pests. No fungicides are needed. The label on the pesticide bottle says that it should not be used 1 week before harvest. Of course not all farmers follow that faithfully, but I remember my father used to insist not to spray any vege less than 5 days to harvest time. So how "toxic" a leafy vege is depends on the attitude of the farmer.

Then we have the other groups of beans/"qua". You see these are "fruits" from a "plant", and these fruits are being harvested continously from the same plant which could last several months, not a one-time harvest as the leafy vege. In this case the farmers need to protect the "plant" as well as the "fruit". He has no choice but to spray the plants with both pesticides and fungicides.

Take the example of cucumber. Cucumber plant would have its first cucumber mature enough to be harvested 40 days after planting, and we can harvest cucumber (from a row of cucumber plants) every day for another 20 days. So what to do during this period of 20 days? The farmer just have to spray whatever pesticide/fungicide needed even if he is harvesting the fruits again the next day. During this harvesting period of 20 days he may spray 1 or 2 times of the needed chemicals since the spray is effective for a week only. For long beans the harvest is on alternate days and the harvesting period is longer, up to 35 days. Chilli and brinjal plants can last even longer. So for this group of beans/"qua", the chances of eating one with recent toxic sprays is certainly very high. You might be eating one which was sprayed with pesticides the day before.

My advice is take more leafy vege which should have less spray. And if you take the other group of beans/"qua" soak them in water for a longer period. Some people even suggested scrubbing them. And please discard the "skins". For cucumber it is easy to trim off the skin. The skin might contain more vitamin C but I think if you eat enough fruits and vege, you have no problem getting the required amount of vitamin C. But you probably can't scrub bitter gourd or the beans.

The experience related here was the practice prevailing 40 years ago. I am not sure if the practice has changed much. I doubt it could change at all.

We often heard people comment something like this: those farmers don't care lah, they would simply spray everything. That is not correct. Not that every farmer cares but because the fungicides/pesticides are very very expensive chemicals. The farmers would certainly try to minimise the use if he is sure they are not needed because the chemicals are so costly. Of course I also can't guarantee some "kiasu" farmers won't over use it to be doubly sure their crops are protected.

Bye. Hope I don't frighten off the vege-lovers.

P the ex-young farmer



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