The implementation of pesticide residue limit standards in food

Recently, the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Health jointly issued the National Food Safety Standard "Maximum Residue Limits of Pesticides in Foods". The new standard will be implemented on March 1, 2013. After that, 6 national standards and 10 agricultural industry standards concerning the maximum residue limit of pesticides in foods will be abolished at the same time. The new pesticide maximum residue limit standard has reached 2,293, which is more than 1,400 compared with the original standard.

Integrate multiple existing standards

There are more than a dozen standards related to pesticide residues, and the same pesticide has different residue limits in peanuts and wheat. According to the relevant person in charge of the Ministry of Agriculture, there are more than a dozen pesticide residue limits in China before the issuance of the Food Safety Law. Different standards. Among them, there are 3 national standards: Maximum Residue Limits of Pesticides in Foods (GB2763-2005), Maximum Residue Limits of Pesticides in Foods (Revised List of GB2763-2005 No. 1), and Food Hygiene Standards (GB2715-2005). . There are as many as 10 industrial standards, such as "Maximum Residue Limits of Pesticides in Agricultural Products" and "Maximum Residue Limits of 20 Pesticides such as Methamidophos in Vegetables and Fruits".

These standards are intertwined, duplicated, and even have some contradictions. For example, the limit of pesticide chlorothalonil in peanuts, the national standard GB2763-2005 and the agricultural industry standard NY662-2003 are repeated as 0.05 mg/kg. The limit of chlorothalonil in wheat is set at 0.1 mg/kg in the national standard GB 2763-2005 and 0.05 mg/kg in the agricultural industry standard NY 1500-2007. Another example is the banned use of phosphine, China's limited national standard GB2763-2005 in rice is still set to 0.1 mg / kg, apparently does not meet the state to strengthen the prohibition of the use of pesticide management requirements, so the new standard will be revised to a more stringent "0.02 mg/kg".

After the promulgation and implementation of the "Food Safety Law," in 2009, it is required to integrate the existing standards for the quality and safety of edible agricultural products, food hygiene standards, food quality standards and relevant food industry standards, and publish them as national food safety standards. To this end, the Ministry of Agriculture has increased its efforts to comprehensively clean up the national and industrial standards concerning pesticide residue limits, and at the same time accelerate the formulation of new pesticide residue limit standards. With the cooperation of relevant departments, through three years of efforts, the Ministry of Agriculture completed the task of integrating and revising the original standards and unified them into one standard text.

Most fresh product standards
There were only 837 residue limits in the old standard, and there were 2293 new standards, of which 1579 were for pesticide residues of fruits and vegetables. According to introduction, the original pesticide residue limit standards in China only specified 873 residues of 201 pesticides in 114 agricultural products. Limited amount. The new standard has established 2293 residue limits for 322 kinds of pesticides in 10 major categories of agricultural products and foods, which basically covers the major agricultural products for daily consumption of residents in our country, and there are relatively large breakthroughs in the number of standards and coverage.

What is the residual limit? The relevant person in charge of the Ministry of Agriculture explained that a residue limit in the standard refers to the prescribed limit of 1 pesticide in an agricultural product. Since the scope of use of each pesticide is different, a pesticide may be approved for use on a variety of crops, so a pesticide needs to be established in different agricultural products. If China approves avermectin for use on 15 kinds of agricultural products such as rice, cotton, cabbage, Chinese cabbage, radish, and apples, the new standard stipulates that 15 kinds of agricultural products should be prescribed for avermectin, a pesticide. 15 residues in the limit.

Why 2293 residue limits are specified? According to reports, the 2293 pesticide residue limits are all based on China's field test data on pesticide residues, routine monitoring data on pesticide residues in agricultural products, and the structure of residents' dietary consumption. They fully meet the requirements of the International Codex Alimentarius standards and revise them based on risk assessments. At the same time, it has widely solicited the views of the public and related industry sectors, and accepted the comments of members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) on the science of standards, ensuring that the standards are scientific, open, and transparent. From the security point of view, the risk assessment results of the new standards are all within the scope of safety and can protect the residents' consumer safety.

The new standards for vegetables, fruits, tea and other fresh agricultural products, the largest number of pesticide residue maximum, of which 915 pesticide residues in vegetables, 664 fruits, 25 in tea, 17 in edible fungi.

There is still a gap with the international comparison

At present there are 3,820 Codex standards, more than 1,500 more than our country. At the end of the “Twelfth Five-Year Plan”, China’s standards will reach 7,000 new standards. For the first time, we have also established group limit standards for similar agricultural products (such as cereals, leafy vegetables, There are 780 standards for 28 crops such as citrus fruits, and the maximum residue limits for pesticides in primary processed products (59 limited standards for 12 processed products such as wheat flour and soybean oil).

The group limit is to select the agricultural products with the highest consumption and highest residual risk in the same group of agricultural products as representative crops, and formulate pesticide residue limit standards based on the experimental data of pesticide residues representing the crops. Therefore, the group limit standard is the common residue limit standard for all agricultural products in the same group of crops. The group limit of 28 sets of agricultural products formulated in the new standards of China will be conducive to expanding the coverage and scope of use of the residual limits. In addition, according to the requirements of the "Food Safety Law", the new standard has recommended matching testing method standards and improved the operability of the new standard.

The relevant person in charge of the Ministry of Agriculture stated that the implementation of the new standard is conducive to standardizing farmers' scientific and rational use of pesticides and controlling pesticide residues from the source. The second is to have a statutory technical basis for the supervision of the quality and safety of agricultural products, which is conducive to all levels of government fulfilling their supervisory duties. The third is conducive to the promotion of international trade in agricultural products. New standards have accepted the scientific evaluation of the members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) during the formulation process and have been recognized by most of the members. This will have a positive impact on China’s exports of advantageous agricultural products.

The person in charge also said that there are still some gaps in China's pesticide residue standards compared with countries such as the Codex Alimentarius (CAC), the United States, and Japan. At present, there are 3,820 CACs, 11,000 in the United States, and over 50,000 positive lists in Japan. According to the "Twelfth Five-Year Development Plan for Quality and Safety of Agricultural Products" formulated by the Ministry of Agriculture, by the end of the "Twelfth Five-Year Plan", China's pesticide residue limit standards will reach 7,000.