Study: pesticide residues higher in imported foods Levels of pesticide residue in the U.S. food supply generally complywith federal tolerances, according to findings fromthe U.S. Food andDrug Administration. seafoods, 97.5%of the40samplesanalyzed contained no pesticide residue, with 2.5% within tolerance. No samples contained violative residue.
Specifically, under the domestic fruits category, no residue was found in 12.6% of the 389 samples analyzed, while 87.2 % showed residue levels within the federal tolerance. One sample contained residue levels that violatedU.S. standards. For domestic vegetables, FDA foundno residue in41.9%of the506 samples; 55.9% waswithin tolerance; and11 samples con- tained violative residue.
found no violative residue. Of the imported fruit analyzed, no res- idue was detected in 43% of the 889 sam- ples,with48.6%withintolerance.Violative residuewas found in 75 samples, or 8.4%. Under imported vegetables, 44.7% of the 658 samples had detectable residue, 43.3%was within tolerance, and 12%had violative residue.
In food products consisting largely of nuts, seeds, oils, honeyandspices, no resi- duewas found in72.5%of the131samples. Another 25.2%was within tolerance, and three samples containedviolative residue. For imports, FDA found 71 samples of grain,or18.9%, containedviolativeresidue, withricecomprisingmostof theviolations. Inthesamecategory, 53.2%of the376sam- ples analyzedhadnodetectable residue. In the category for import fish, shellfish and seafood, 93.9% of the 132 samples had no detectable residue, with 5.3% within tolerance. One sample contained violative residue. FDA analyzed one egg sample and through the Specialty Crop Block Grant Programto support farmers growing spe- cialty crops, including fruits, vegetables, tree nuts and nursery crops. The funding, author i zed by the 2018 Farm Bill ($72.9 million) and the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021 ($97 million), will provide noncompeti- tive grant funding to the departments of agriculture in the 50 states, the District of Columbia and the fiveU.S. territories. The56grant recipients fundsub-awards forresearch,agriculturalextensionactivities andprograms to increasedemand for agri- cultural goods of value to farmers in their respective state or territory. Additionally, for stimulus funding, states were encour- aged to prioritize projects that respond to COVID-19 impacts. Thismay includeproj- ects to assist farmemployees and projects to fund farmers, foodbusinesses andother relevantentitiestorespondtorisksandsup- ply chaindisruptions. Some of the projects to be funded through the California Department of Food and Agriculture include education- al and training workshops for on-farm water and energy automation; farming practices in Sonoma County to mitigate impacts of Californiawildfires; workplace safety for postharvest treenut hulling and
In a report released last month, the FDA summarized results of its pesticide monitoring program for fiscal year 2019. It looked at domestic and imported foods for humans and animals. In total, FDAan- alyzed 4,692 samples, of which 4,327were foods forhumansand365wereforanimals. Of thehuman foodsamples, FDA found that 98.7% of domestic and 89.1% of im- ported foods were compliant with feder- al standards. No detectable residue was found in 42.4%of the domestic and 49.4% of the import samples. FDA collected 1,258 domestic human food samples from 45 states and Puerto Rico. It also analyzed 3,069 imported food samples from84 countries. “For many commodity groups, the vio- lation rate was higher for the import sam- ples,” FDA reported. Forexample, 18.9%of import grainsam- pleswereviolativecomparedto0.9%ofU.S. grainsamples, accordingtoFDA. Similarly, 8.4%of import fruit sampleswereviolative, while 0.3%of domestic fruit samples were violative. FDA found 12% of import vege- table samples were violative, compared to 2.2% for domestic samples. In other food products, theviolationratewas4.5%for im- port samplescomparedto2.3%for theU.S.
In the domestic grains category, no residue was detected in 58.6% of the 111 samples analyzed. Some 40.5%was with- in tolerance, and one sample contained violative residue. AnalysisofU.S.milk, dairyproducts and eggs found that 91.4% of the 81 samples contained no pesticide residue, with 8.6% In other import food products, 76.3% of the 198 samples had no residue detect- ed, and 19.2%was within tolerance. FDA found nine samples had violative residue. Of the 365 animal food samples FDA analyzed, 98.4%of domestic and 95.4%of imports were compliant. No pesticide res- idues were found in 40.9%of the domestic and43.7%of theimportedanimal foodsam- ples,accordingtothereport.FDAexamined 127domesticand238 import samples. USDA offers grants for specialty crops within tolerance. Nonewere violative. For domestic fish, shellfish and other
The U.S. Department of Agriculture will distribute more than $243 million in grants to support specialty crops, includ- ing fruits, vegetables, tree nuts and nurs- ery crops through two USDA programs: the Specialty Crop Block Grant Program and the Specialty Crop Research Initiative grants program. USDA is investing $169.9 mi l l ion
processing; promoting pollinator-plant awareness, access and habitat expansion to benefit the state’s nurseries; and mar- ketingprograms for figs, prunes, peaches, pears andwines produced in the state. USDA also announced an investment of nearly $74 million to 21 award recipi- ents through its Specialty Crop Research Initiative grants program. USDA said re- search program investments address crit- ical challenges facing conventional and organic food and agricultural production systems across the specialty crop industry. Theprogram’spriority-focusareas include improving crop characteristics; managing threats frompests and diseases; improv- ingproductionefficiency, profitabilityand technological innovation; andmitigating food-safety hazards. AmongtheprojectsaretwoinCalifornia. A University of California, Berkeley, re- searcher is looking intopreventingpatho- gencontamination inwater in lettucepro- duction, and a UC Davis team is working onclimate sustainable lettuceproduction. ResearchersatUCRiversidewill assess the threat posed by thewoolly apple aphid. The grant program favors multistate, multi-institutional or trans-disciplinary projects and includesways to share results withproducers and the public.
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6 Ag Alert November 3, 2021
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