Pesticide residual levels below tolerance in the US
The Pesticide Residue Monitoring Program Fiscal Year 2019 Pesticide Report has been released by the US Food and Drug Administration. The report indicates that the amounts of pesticide chemical residues in the US food supply assessed by FDA are generally under U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’ (EPA) pesticide limits.
FDA's regulatory monitoring program examined 4 327 human food samples – 1 258 domestic and 3 069 import samples. The domestic human food samples were collected from 45 states and Puerto Rico, while the import human food samples were collected from 84 countries. The FDA determined that 98.7% of domestic human foods and 89.1% of imported human foods met federal requirements. In 42.4% of domestic samples and 49.4% of import samples, no pesticide chemical residues were detected. Import samples had a higher violation rate in certain human food commodity categories. Furthermore, the FDA tested 365 animal food samples – 127 domestic samples and 238 import samples. According to the results, 98.4% of domestic animal food samples and 95.4% of imported animal food samples met federal standards. In 40.9% of domestic animal food samples and 43.7% of imported animal food samples, no pesticide chemical residues were detected. Moreover, for the "Domestically Produced Animal-Derived Foods" assignment, FDA performed pesticide tests on 153 domestic milk, shell egg, honey, and game meat samples in fiscal year 2019. There were no pesticide residues detected in any of the animal-derived foods, and 88.9 percent of the samples had no residues.
Overall, the findings of the Annual Pesticide Residue Monitoring Program Report for the 2019 fiscal year indicate that pesticide residual levels in the US food supply do not represent a risk to public health.
Source:
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