Tomato Scare Italian-Style

By Barbara Rudolph

All the ingredients were in place for a stew of a scandal. At stake were nothing less than the fate of the Italian tomato crop, one of the country's leading exports, and the pride of Campania, a lush farming region that stretches from Naples to the slopes of Vesuvius. At the height of the harvest two weeks ago, deliveries of tomatoes to canneries were abruptly suspended by the Italian Ministry of Agriculture. Reason: suspicions that much of a 200,000-metric-ton crop, perhaps 30% of a bumper harvest, contained the poisonous insecticide aldicarb. Marketed by Union Carbide under the trade name Temik, this is the chemical that contaminated California watermelons in July.

Had careless or greedy Italian farmers endangered the health of spaghetti- sauce lovers from Bologna to Burbank? No, the Italian Ministry of Health proclaimed last week. After a ten-day investigation that fueled a heated public debate, the government announced that the Italian tomato crop, which accounts for some 60% of the world's production of peeled canned tomatoes, was perfectly safe for consumption.

Concern about the crop began simmering when cannery operators heard reports that some tomato farmers had employed Temik, which in Italy can be legally used only on sugar beets. Police investigated, and ten samples of tomatoes that farmers admitted had been treated with Temik were brought to government laboratories in Caserta.

The Italian press, never renowned for its restraint, tackled the story with gusto. Turin's La Stampa carried a headline about "poison salad on the table." Public fears grew when one newspaper erroneously reported that infant mortality was widespread in the tomato-growing area. Although the Italian government gave the crop a clean bill of health, public uncertainty lingers. Francesco De Lorenzo, Under Secretary of the Ministry of Health, declared that the state had tested the samples with procedures identical to those of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and had found no traces of the pesticide above .05 parts per million. According to World Health Organization standards, consumers would have to eat more than 13 lbs. a day of tomatoes containing that amount of Temik to be in danger. Lorenzo insisted, "Possible limited traces below the level tested do not constitute a matter of concern for public health." Not everyone was convinced. A front-page editorial in La Stampa asked, "Don't we still have the right to know if some traces . . . remain?"

Temik is a powerful pesticide that greatly increases crop yields when properly used. The trouble is that some farmers misuse it. In July more than 1 million California-grown watermelons were crushed or dumped because they had been poisoned by the insecticide. In 1980 Temik was withdrawn from the market on Long Island, N.Y., after residues of the insecticide were discovered in some wells. In Italy farmers have been illegally using the pesticide on beans, cucumbers and lettuce for several years.

After the investigation, canneries began belatedly processing tomatoes last week. At least 30,000 metric tons of tomatoes, though, had to be destroyed because they spoiled during the inquiry. The growers would have undoubtedly liked to throw a few of those rotten tomatoes at government officials.

With reporting by Walter Galling/Rome