Brussels, 21/05/2014 (Agence Europe) - More than 97% of the samples tested as part of the European programme to monitor pesticides in food showed residue rates within the limits tolerated by EU legislation, according to the latest annual report on the subject, which was published on Tuesday 20 May by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). This report, the fifth of its kind, summarises the results of the tests carried out in 2011 in 27 member states of the EU, plus Norway and Iceland.
Of more than 79,000 samples of over 600 food products analysed to detect the presence of some 900 pesticides, fewer than 400 were identified in measurable quantities. Bromide ion was the most frequently detected pesticide, followed by propamocarb, thiabendazole, boscalid, dithiocarbamates, chlorpyrifos, imizalil and chlormequat chloride.
98.1% of the samples showed residue rates within the maximum limits authorised by EU legislation (compared to 98.4% in 2010), and 53.4% of the samples contained no measurable residue. The highest exceedances were observed in spinach (6.5% of samples), bean pods (4.1%), oranges (2.5%), cucumbers (2.1%), rice (2%), carrots (1.6%), mandarins (1.4%) and pears (1.1%). The lowest exceedance rates were found in wheat flour (0.3%) and potatoes (0.6%). EFSA reaffirms that 99% of the 171 pesticides tested present no long-term risk to consumer health. However, the evaluation of extreme food exposure (or cumulative risks) in the short term showed that concerns for consumer health cannot be ruled out for 253 substances, if products containing highly concentrated residues were consumed in large quantities. Two samples of pears exceeded the toxicological thresholds laid down for cumulative effects.
In food of animal origin (1,429 samples of poultry liver and meat were tested), none of the samples showed rates which exceeded the limits. Measurable residues were the rarest in baby food (2.2%), which also showed the lowest exceedance rates: 0.2% in 39 samples out of the 1,796 analysed. The analysis of samples of organic products gave exceedance rates of 0.5%, which is considerably lower than the rate in conventionally farmed products (2.6%). The exceedance rate for food imported from third countries was four times higher than that of food produced in the 29 European countries covered by the tests (6.3% compared to 1.5%), with Vietnam at the top of the table for the numbers of limit exceedances per sample tested (26.8% of 421 samples). (AN)