Brussels, 12/03/2015 (Agence Europe) - More than 97% of food samples tested by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) contained pesticides of up to the level allowed under EU legislation, according to a report published by the EFSA on Thursday 12 March.
EFSA's annual report on pesticide residues in processed and non-processed food is a summary of results of tests carried out in 2013 in 27 EU member states, Norway and Iceland under two monitoring programmes - a national programme designed by each country and a programme coordinated by the EU.
The report reveals that the level of multiple residues (meaning residues of more than one pesticide) in fruit and vegetables has again increased, but to the dismay of NGOs like PAN Europe, EFSA says that from the toxicology reports available, it is unlikely that exposure to pesticides covered by the coordinated surveillance programme is a long-term danger for consumer health.
Major findings covered by the report:
Of 80,967 samples of a wide range of food products tested for residues of 685 pesticides, 97.4% had residues that fell within the upper limits allowed under EU rules (compared with 98.1% last year);
54.6% of samples did not contain any detectable residues, while 42.8% of samples contained detectable levels of residues but within the legal limits;
2.6% of all samples were above the legal limits (2,116 samples);
1.5% of samples were well above the legal limits;
Multiple residues were detected in 27.3% of samples (compared with 26.1% in 2012). The products with the highest percentage of samples containing multiple pesticides were strawberries (63%), peaches (53%), apples (46%) and lettuce (36%).
The majority of samples (68.2%) came from food that originated in Europe, and 27.7% from food imported into the EU. The percentage of samples from outside the EU that were above the legal limits is higher (5.7%) than for samples of food from EU and European Economic Area food (1.4%), but the percentage of imported food containing pesticides has fallen since 2012 (7.5%).
Under the programme coordinated by the EU, nation states tested 11,582 samples of a basket of 12 food products (apples, head cabbage, leek, lettuce, peaches, rye or oats, strawberries, tomatoes, cow's milk, pork and wine) looking for traces of 209 pesticides.
The results show that 99.1% of the analysed samples contained concentrations of pesticide residues within the legal limits and nearly 53% of samples did not contain any measurable residues, but samples containing multiple residues were detected for all types of food.
Among food of animal origin, no samples exceeded the legal limits for cow's milk and pork, but record high levels of pesticides above the legal limit were found in strawberries (2.5 % of samples), lettuce (2.3% of samples), oats (1.3%), peaches (1.1%) and apples (1%). For all other products, the percentage of samples breaking the rules was below 1% (head cabbage 0.9%, tomatoes 0.9%, leeks 0.5% and wine 0.1%)
For most of the pesticides measured, acute exposure or cumulative levels were negligable over the short-term or of a level unlikely to be of concern to health. Pesticide levels exceeded the toxicology levels set for cumulative impact (ARfd) in 218 of the 18,747 samples. Most of these overshoots were for residues of chlorpyrifos, and EFSA says they are due to the recent lowering of the toxicology reference value for the pesticide in question. Likewise, long-term exposure was negligable or within the acceptable toxicology dose for all pesticides apart from dichlorvos, which has now been outlawed in the EU.
PAN Europe (Pesticide Action Network) accuses EFSA of not using the proper evaluation methods for multiple toxicity for the past nine years as EU Directive 396/2005 requires it to do. Martin Dermine of PAN Europe explains that 97% of food eaten in the EU may not exceed the allowed upper limits, the total number of pesticide residues in food has increased in recent years, which is a matter of concern because little is known about the combined effects of cocktails of pesticides on human health. The NGO says that the current food safety rules do not protect consumers against toxic cocktails and should be tightened up as a matter of urgency. (Aminata Niang)