Article by Francesca Moriero – Journalist, Fanpage.it
Every year, EFSA, the European Food Safety Authority, collects and analyzes thousands of food samples to check for pesticide residues, chemical substances used to protect crops from insects, fungi, or weeds. Monitoring serves to assess the extent of these residues in the foods we eat and whether the detected levels pose a health risk. In its latest report, based on data collected throughout 2023, EFSA confirmed a stable and reassuring picture: in the vast majority of cases, residues are well below the limits set by European legislation. Consequently, European consumer exposure is considered very low, and therefore of little concern from a health perspective.
Pesticides in food: what EFSA analyzed
In 2023, the European Food Safety Authority launched, as it does every year, a broad analysis campaign on some of the foods most commonly consumed in European diets. The monitoring was carried out as part of the European Coordinated Monitoring Program, which involves all Member States, Norway, and Iceland. This program is based on random sampling: foods are selected without regard to risk, precisely to obtain a realistic and representative picture of what is actually consumed every day. In 2023, 13,246 samples were collected from a list of twelve food products chosen because they are widely consumed on European tables. These include vegetables such as carrots and cauliflower, fruits such as kiwis, oranges, and pears, staple foods such as potatoes, brown rice, and rye, as well as dried beans, onions, and two animal products: beef liver and chicken fat. This list does not change annually: the products are analyzed on a rotation basis, every three years, to observe any changes over time. And the results? They are reassuring. In 99% of cases, the analyzed samples fully complied with the limits set by European regulations. Specifically, 70% of the foods contained no measurable pesticide residues, while another 28% contained very low amounts, still within the legal limits. Only 2% of the samples exceeded the maximum permitted threshold, but after accounting for the margin of error allowed for laboratory methods, the actual percentage of non-compliance remained at 1%.
These figures, therefore, demonstrate a robust supervisory system and overall food quality that remains high. This is not an isolated case: the percentages are virtually identical to those recorded in 2020, confirming a stable situation.