Pesticide residue falls in food
10 Apr 2015
More than 97% of food samples evaluated by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) contain pesticide residue levels that fall within legal limits, with just under 55% of those samples being free of detectable traces of these chemicals.
The findings are part of EFSA’s 2013 annual report on pesticide residues in food published in March.
The report includes the results for almost 81,000 food samples from 27 EU Member States, Iceland and Norway.
“I think the report makes positive reading for European foodies
Environmental chemistry lecturer Oliver Jones
As part of the study, 29 reporting countries carried out two monitoring programmes: a national programme designed by each country, and an EU-coordinated programme under which all food control authorities monitored the same “basket” of food products.
A wide variety of processed and unprocessed food products were tested for the presence of 685 pesticides, the EFSA said.
According to the report, the majority of samples (68.2%) were taken from food originating in Europe, with 27.7% coming from food imported from third countries.
The percentage of samples from third countries exceeding legal limits was higher (5.7%) than for EU countries (1.4%).
However, exceedance rates for imported food have fallen by nearly two percent (from 7.5%) since 2012.
As part of the EU coordinated programme, the reporting states tested 11,582 samples from 12 food products - apples, head cabbage, leek, lettuce, peaches, rye, oats, strawberries, tomatoes, cow’s milk, swine meat and wine.
The results show that 99.1% of the samples contained residue levels within permissible limits and almost 53% contained no measurable residues.
Compared with the results for 2010, when the same food products - excluding wine - were tested, the percentage of samples exceeding the legal limits has fallen for all food products tested.
EFSA used the data to assess whether current dietary exposure to pesticide residues presented a risk to human health in the long term (chronic) or short term (acute).
It concluded that pesticide residues in food was unlikely to have a long-term effect on consumer health.
“I think the report makes positive reading for European foodies,” said Oliver Jones, lecturer in environmental chemistry at RMIT University Melbourne.
