Pesticides residues in food: what’s the situation in the EU?

The report analyses information on pesticide residues gathered from random and targeted monitoring programmes. EFSA also published an interactive tool that allows users to browse the data in charts and graphs. Random sampling shows consistent resultsEFSA analysed the results of 13,246 random samples taken by EU Member States, Norway and Iceland from 12 of the most consumed food products in the EU as part of the EU-coordinated control programme (EU MACP).  The EU MACP programme samples the same commodities every three years to track trends. For 2023 these were carrots, cauliflowers, kiwi fruits (green, red and yellow), onions, oranges, pears, potatoes, dried beans, brown rice, rye, bovine liver and poultry fat.From this subset of samples analysed under the EU MACP, 99% were found to be compliant with EU legislation. This finding is consistent with the results obtained in 2020 (99.1%), when the same selection of products was sampled.Of the 2023 samples, 70% were free of quantifiable levels of residues, while 28% contained one or more residues within legal limits. Maximum residue levels (MRLs) were exceeded in 2% of samples, of which 1% were non-compliant after taking into account the measurement uncertainty Scientific concept used in risk assessment to describe all types of limitations in available knowledge at the time an assessment is conducted, with the agreed resources, that affect the probability of possible outcomes to the assessment. Targeted sampling with high...