FDA Issues FY 2019 Pesticide Report; Pesticide Levels Remain Low
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued its annual Pesticide Residue Monitoring Program Report for FY 2019. FDA tested for 812 pesticides and industrial chemicals across 4,692 total samples. The majority of samples had pesticide residues below the limits (known as “tolerances”) set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). These results are consistent with the trend of low levels of pesticide residue violations over the past 8 years.
To protect the public, EPA sets tolerance levels on the amounts of pesticides, known as pesticide chemical residues, that may remain in or on some foods, since growers often use pesticides to protect their crops from insects, weeds, fungi, and other pests. FDA's role is to ensure that pesticide chemical residues, both in or on foods, comply with EPA tolerances. A food is in violation of federal standards when it has pesticide chemical residues above the ERPA tolerance, residues of pesticides that have no EPA tolerance, or residues of pesticides that do not have a tolerance exemption for that specific pesticide/commodity combination.