Forwarded message: Delivered-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Delivered-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Thu, 21 May 1998 14:56:33 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Sid Shniad <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Chilean Wine X-UID: 284 >April 12 1998 >The Sunday limes >(from Internet edition) > BRITAIN > > > >Children pay price of >cheap Chilean wine > > >by Paul Nuki >and Lake Sagaris > >WINE on sale in British supermarkets is being produced at appalling human cost. The unregulated use of chemicals in vineyards which supply stores including Marks & Spencer, Waitrose and Tesco is being blamed for birth defects and poisonings among workers and their families. > >A Sunday limes investigation has revealed that vineyard workers in Chile, one of the biggest producers of "value for money" supermarket wines, are being exposed to a cocktail of toxic pesticides, herbicides and fungicides, many of which have been banned or restricted in Europe and America. > >The boom in the use of such chemicals, which has almost tripled in Chile in the past 13 years, coincides with a doubling in the incidence of children born with brain damage and exposed or twisted spines in wine and fruit-producing areas. > >In other cases, workers - some as young as 12 - suffer "severe intoxications" after being ordered to douse vines with chemicals, often without masks or adequate protective clothing. > >Lord Ashley, who took up the cudgels on behalf of thalidomide victims in the 1960s, said yesterday that he would ask ministers to investigate claims being made by doctors, trade unions and charities in Chile. "These disturbing practices require scrutiny and I am asking Clare Short, the minister for overseas development, to examine the evidence and see whether there is action that Britain can take," he said. > >Eugenia Mejias, a former fruit-picker, is now paying what many experts believe is the hidden cost of cheap Chilean wines and fruit. Her days are spent tending to her daughter, Evelyn, a seven-year-old who appears no older than three. A rash covers her legs, paralysed and stiff; her swollen head grows steadily larger. When she roils her onto her stomach, her back is twisted, her spine exposed. > >Evelyns parents worked in the fields around Rancagua, a town in Chiles fertile central valley whose vineyards supply supermarkets including Waitrose, Marks & Spencer and Tesco. They worked as temporeros - uncontracted workers who migrate from job to job for piecemeal wages. > >It is on the back of workers like them that British supermarkets have been able to pioneer a "wine drinkers revolution" In which good quality wines have become widely available at knock-down prices. Chue exports more than 9m litres of wine a year to the UK, with supermarket prices starting at =A3399 a bottle. > >Evelyn s condition is part of a phenomenon that has disturbed Dr Victoria Mella, a gynaecologist at the hospital in Rancagua. For two years Mella studied 10,000 live births, comparing figures for 1975-77, before the Chilean fruit and wine industry took off, with those for 1988-90, once it had started to boom. > >She found the number of children born with serious deformities affecting the brain and spinal column had leapt from 14% of ail deformities to 34%. Overall, the rate of serious congenital deformities in the area was found to be 3.6 births per 1,000 - almost twice the national average. > >Nobody knows the exact cause of the defects, but Mella and other experts eye with growing suspicion the crop sprays that have accompanied Chile s export boom. The chemicals, some of which are known to cause cancer and foetal abnormalities, have already led to litigation in other parts of the world, including Britain. > >Poorly paid and almost entirely without employment rights, Chile's 900,000 temporeros are the backbone of an industry which contributes =A3625m a year to the national economy. Wine exports from the country have rocketed to more than =A3125m annually, with Britain, America and Canada the biggest customers. > >South of Santiago, workers for the Concha y Toro vineyard, which produces wines for lead=EEng British supermarkets, were gathering the harvest last week. The vines stand firm and healthy but chemicals have killed everything else on the ground around them. > >Reporters watched a 12-year-old boy working beside his father to earn about =A3625 each a day. "It is illegal to contract anyone under 18," said Fernando Napoli, a supervisor who adm=EEts that the vineyard is regularly sprayed with chemicals. "We contract the father and then he turns up with his wife or other members of the family." > >Mara Elena Rozas, director of the Pesticide Action Network in Chile, said: "Child labourers are exposed to pesticides in a way no child should ever be. A study conducted last year in the town of Coinco found that of 298 teenagers surveyed, 170 worked in the fields. More than one in three directly handled pesticides while the rest worked in the fields where they were being sprayed." > >Erica Munoz, treasurer of the Santa Maria Temporary Fruitworkers Union, said pesticides were sometimes applied from the air while unprotected workers were in the fields. "They simply move us to one side, spray the pesticides on and move us back in," she said. > >Tesco said it would investigate the allegations of workers health being threatened. "If there is any evidence that local workers are exposed to serious health risks, then we would take it very seriously and act immediately," said a spokesman. > >Ail the supermarkets said there were rigorous checks on the wines themselves to ensure they were free from contamination. "Ail our suppliers use modem techniques and we are not aware of pesticides being used," said a spokesman for Waitrose. >A Marks & Spencer spokesman said: "We regularly visit all our suppliers to make sure ail our standards are met. We do not allow pesticides that are not legally approved." Safeway said: "We work with reputable suppliers that we check regularly." -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
