Brussels, 08/11/2011 (Agence Europe) - Compliance rates with EU rules on levels of pesticides authorised in foods are continuing to rise, according to the third Annual Report on Pesticide Residues, published by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) on 8 November, which assesses the exposure of consumers to those residues through their diets.
The report was completed as part of the monitoring programme coordinated by the EU to gather comparable data in 29 countries (the EU27 along with Iceland and Norway). Nearly 68,000 samples of food commodities were analysed for 834 pesticides. The number of food commodities analysed rose from just under 200 in 2008 to approximately 300 in 2009. In 2009, 97.4% of the samples analysed fell within the permitted Maximum Residue Levels (MRLs), a rise of about one percentage point since 2008. Samples free of measurable pesticide residues numbered 61.4%. EFSA emphasises that the presence of pesticides in food at a level exceeding the MRLs does not necessarily imply a safety concern. By comparison with 2006, the last time the same food commodities of plant origin were analysed under the EU-coordinated programme, the MRL exceedance rate has fallen from 4.4% to 1.4%, a drop that may be partially ascribed to the harmonisation of MRLs, which came into force in September 2008 and also to changes in the pattern of pesticide use in Europe.
More exact assessment of the risks of long-term exposure by consumers to pesticide residues has allowed EFSA to conclude that, based on current knowledge, long-term exposure to residues detected in major foods that make up the European diet should not raise health concerns. The assessment of short-term acute exposure was based on worst-case scenarios - assuming the consumption of large portions of a food item containing the highest recorded residue - and EFSA concluded that risks to consumers were unlikely. Of the 10,553 samples taken in the EU coordinated programme, a potential risk could not be ruled out for 77. MRLs were more often breached in samples from countries outside the European Economic Area (6.9% of samples) than in those from the EU and EFTA countries (1.5% of samples). The lowest exceedance rates were for food products of animal origin (0.3%). The MRL exceedance rate recorded for organic produce was lower by a factor of 7 compared to conventionally grown produce.
Residue cocktail. The NGO PAN Europe highlights that “food on the European market is still heavily contaminated with cocktails of pesticides”, as 25.1% of foods still contain high levels of multiple residues. It says that the highest reported number of pesticide residues in one food item - 26 in total - was from a sample of raisins from Turkey, analysed in the Netherlands. (AN/transl.rt)