Ex-Greenpeace insider questions Indian arm's study

A pesticide manufacturers’ association on Monday had an early founding member of Greenpeace, who has since turned a prominent critic of its aims and findings, to rubbish the latter body’s recent rap on the Indian tea industry.

Patrick Moore, an ecologist and who is considered a renegade by Greenpeace (he questions the general environmental stand on global warming and nuclear energy, for instance), was here to support the views of the Crop Care Federation of India (CCFI), the pesticide combine, in this regard. The subject was a press conference organised by CCFI to rap Greenpeace India’s (GI’s) study on the tea industry — the report says tea sold in India contains unacceptable levels of pesticide residue.

The GI report, Trouble Brewing, had said it had found pesticides in the country’s leading tea brands. These residues included those not approved for use on tea crops. The report was issued in August and was based on samples of 49 branded and packaged teas, from eight of the top 11 companies.

Moore said GI was misleading people by not revealing details of the raw data on which it has based the report. “Why are they not giving the numbers? Greenpeace refuses to share data. Such NGOs are manufacturing misleading reports and are a threat to India’s effort to safeguard its food security,” he said.

'Nonsense'
GI dismissed these allegations as “baseless” and said it had already shared the said data with the tea industry. “We don't think we need to share the data with them (CCFI and pesticide makers). They are not the stakeholders. This data has already been shared with the tea companies,” said Neha Saigal, senior campaigner at GI.

She noted that many tea companies had already issued statements committing to Greenpeace's recommendations on phasing out pesticide for tea cultivation. “We are under no obligation to share tea companies' data with CCFI. It is for the tea companies to decide whether they want to share their data with a third party. CCFI is worried that this is a threat to their business interest -- it is, clearly, not worried about the sustainability of the tea sector,” said Saigal.