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Proposals for 2008 Monitoring Plan For Pesticide Residues in Food and Drink

PRC
17 May 2007

Comments welcome - please respond by 11 June 2007

1. Introduction

Each year as a follow up to the official processes which regulate pesticides, government monitors food to check that the residue levels found are within those expected from normal use of the pesticide and checks that legal trading levels (Maximum Residue Levels) are not breached for both imported and home-produced food.

2. Background

A draft plan outlining the reasons for the selection of the different food has been produced. If you want to find out more and comment on the plan then please read on.

3. Index

Which commodities are the PRC planning to monitor?
How can I let you have my views?
How can I find some background information about the monitoring programme?
How do the PRC decide the priority for each survey?
Can I see the supporting information?

4. Which commodities are the PRC planning to monitor?

The PRC have put together a draft list for consideration. There are more commodities on this list than we plan to survey but we plan to review this list in detail before our July meeting. We will consider external comments as part of this review.

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Fruit and Vegetables

apples
apricots
currants (black, white and red)
chillies
chinese cabbage
fennel
grapes
lettuce
marrow / courgette
melon
onion
parsnip
rhubarb
spring greens
peppers (all types of fresh peppers except chilli peppers) - rapid response survey

EU Surveys

carrots
cucumber
oranges
pears
spinach
potatoes

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Cereal

bread
bran
non-wheat flours

EU Survey

rice

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Animal Products

chicken
duck
liver
sausages
oily fish
prawns

Other groceries

infant food (meat, fish or cheese)
fruit juice
coffee
nuts
cooking oils
tinned oranges and soft citrus

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5. How can I let you have my views?

Please send your comments by 11 June 2007 to:
Helen Kyle, Pesticides Safety Directorate, Mallard House, Kings Pool, 3 Peasholme Green, YORK, YO1 7PX
Or e-mail helen.kyle@hse.gsi.gov.uk

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6. How can I find some background information about the monitoring programme?

Elsewhere on this website

6.1 How many surveys take place?

Around 35-40 surveys take place each year, with the aim of sampling the following broad areas:

Dietary staples - milk, bread and potatoes. The PRC is committed to sampling these 3 commodities which have been surveyed every year for many years.

Rolling programme - these types of surveys form the largest part of the programme and include fruit, vegetables, cereal and cereal based products and animal products. Because it is not possible to survey every commodity each year then commodities are rotated every few years. Certain commodities which are consumed frequently, especially by children, are surveyed annually (e.g. apples) whereas others are surveyed every 4-7 years. Infant food is surveyed one every two years.

EU surveys - the UK is committed to taking part in the European Union harmonised pesticide monitoring programme and consider this as a high priority commitment. Eight surveys are recommended this year.

Follow-up surveys - these are surveys to address issues arising from UK surveillance or from reliable information from other Member States’ surveillance.

Processed foods - it was agreed following an earlier consultation exercise that the surveillance of complex processed food is analytically difficult and the results are very difficult to interpret. Further surveys of processed food are to concentrate on more simple processed food (such as tinned vegetables and fruit) to determine if the different primary sources of food for fresh and processed markets influence the residues found.

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6.2 What is the purpose of each survey?

Surveys usually fall into one of 3 types:

Representative - larger surveys of 300 samples usually conducted on popular foods, especially those consumed by children e.g. milk and apples. The UK also takes part in surveys which form part of the larger statistical based EU harmonised programme.
Intelligence gathering surveys - which usually form part of the rolling programme of surveys but which are important in determining residues in a wide range of commodities.
Follow-up surveys - targeted surveys, which are initiated in direct response to specific results found in a previous year or other reliable intelligence information. Such surveys may be targeted to a particular analyte range.

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6.3 Where are samples taken from?

The majority of the PRC sampling takes place at retail level using trained purchasers from a market research company. Since 2003, Defra inspectors have been used to sample a range of fresh produce. 500 out of 3,700 samples are taken by Defra inspectors. During 2008 local authority officers are planned for some work.

The involvement of the Defra inspectors in this work has been beneficial to the programme. The skills of the inspector in taking samples and record keeping are well recognised within the industry. A similar level of involvement has been planned for 2008 though this will be subject to the usual provisos about budget and future organisational change.

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7. How do the PRC decide the priority for each survey?

Foods which are consumed often as a significant component of the diet (staples) are monitored regularly; in addition the programme targets foodstuffs most likely to contain residues.

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Control Priorities

PSD carries out monitoring of both home produced and imported food for pesticide residues. Monitoring control priorities are:

to check that residues do not exceed the statutory Maximum Residue Level (MRL)
to back up the statutory approvals process for pesticides by checking that no unexpected residues are occurring in crops and,
to check that human dietary intakes of residues in foods are within acceptable levels.

PSD has published its priority categorisation system as part of the UK’s National Consolidated National Control Plan. Currently the priority is risk based on the evidence of incidence of pesticide residue problems and dietary importance but a high importance is also attached to compliance with European harmonised obligations for pesticide residue monitoring in food and drink.

PRC Monitoring Priority Categorisation
Priority categorisation	Type of survey
Low priority
no evidence of MRL exceedances or non approved pesticide problems on this commodity (from RASFFs, other Member States' monitoring data, UK monitoring or industry data) low incidence of residues expected on the commodity commodity is not a major component of the diet for any population consumption group	routine part of the rolling dietary survey to check regulatory compliance and provide further intelligence information. commodity may be examined only every five or more years.
Medium priority
some evidence of non compliance residues expected on the commodity and/or the commodity is consumed regularly by consumer populations or rapid popularity has promoted influx of commodity from a range of new sources	routine rolling surveys for mainly fresh commodities examined every 2-3 years. targeted surveys to follow up on previous results.
High priority
recent evidence of non compliance evidence of exceedance of the Acute Reference Dose residues expected on this commodity and/or commodity is of significant dietary importance by some consumer groups e.g. milk and infants and/or a requirement to comply with European harmonised pesticide monitoring recommendation in fruit, vegetables and cereals including recommendations relating to infant food and infant formulae	annual survey for commodity of dietary significance or targeted monitoring survey for specific identified problem. UK participation in EU harmonised programmes.

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8. Can I see the supporting information?

Annex A: Index of Surveyed Commodities

Index of commodities surveyed in the last 5 years (pdf, 7 pages, 40 KB)

This shows which commodities since 2005 would be due to be surveyed based purely on the interval between surveys. We have added some ideas for 2009 and 2010 but do not propose to examine these in details for the moment.

Annex B: Detailed justification of 2008 plan

Detailed justificaiton of 2008 plan (pdf, 42 pages, 484 KB)

Each commodity has a half page summary detailing its surveillance history, dietary significance , relevant findings and monitoring priority.

Annex C: Consumption Data

Consumption data (pdf, 7 pages, 39 KB)

Consumption graphs that were presented as part of the 2007 plan have been re-presented.

Annex D: Summary of RASFFs

Summary of RASFFs (pdf, 3 pages, 27 KB)

European Commission Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF). PSD receives notifications from the commission concerning commodities which contains residues of pesticide which may present a risk to health or are unusual. A summary of this information can also be found on the Commission website at http://ec.europa.eu/food/food/rapidalert/index_en.htm