Hi all, my first post so be gentle with me. I have read these pages for a long time as a guest but am now prompted to register to find out your views on the use of Carbofuran in Thai agriculture.

Me and my 4 year old love watermelon! We can quite happily sit down together and eat a whole one between us, however, I have now been informed that it is absolutely the norm in Thailand for Carbofuran to be used on watermelon, pumpkins, cucumber etc etc. So, just when I thought we were eating healthy it concerns me greatly that we are in fact being poisoned by a chemical that is banned in Europe and many other countries.

Do any of you farmers have any knowledge on this subject. Is the chemical present throughout the whole plant it is used on? In watermelons is it in the flesh, or does the chemical only reside in the skin or rind? It seems my wife knew about the issues but only thought you have a problem if you eat a lot. I said I was going to do a 3 day watermelon fast and then she and my MIL said, oh be careful you might get sick??? She was referring to the common knowledge (amongst Thais) that carbofuran was used. She had no idea the toxin is accumulative and in the worst case we could have been poisoning our child.

If anyone can provide information I would be grateful. This matter is serious enough to me to have registered. Is there a more friendly alternative to carbofuran. Thank you for any help.

Al

You may want to pose this question in a pm to: http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/user/74166-drtreelove/

Not in Thailand anymore, but he will answer you.

Mate have a look in the bigger farmercentres, they sell everything in huge quantity's, all those chemicals and there is not even an english manual with it if any manual at all. Or look at those 50kg bags of msg that restaurants buy. Organic is the way to go here, i grow my own fruits and yes i also have carbofuran and others...

My wife always warns me that they inject color pigment in the red watermelons.

I stopped worrying about the chemicals, without them you can't barely grow anything in Thailand. Just don't eat to much of 1 fruit/vegy/meat.

Carbofuran is one of the most toxic carbamate pesticides.

It is a systemic insecticide, which means that the plant absorbs it through the roots, and from here the plant distributes it throughout its organs where insecticidal concentrations are attained. Carbofuran also has contact activity against pests.

Toxicity to humans

Carbofuran has one of the highest acute toxicities to humans of any insecticide widely used on field crops (only aldicarb and parathion are more toxic). A quarter teaspoon (1 mL) can be fatal

True, I cannot cultivate melons as the long cultivation time means that they get destroyed before they are ripe. Cucumbers: race against time as various beasties destroy them after a week or two of harvesting. I think that this is why so many Thai vegetables are so much smaller than what we eat in Europe, they have to ripen before they are destroyed.

I notice that my SIL doesn't eat his melons ...

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