The alarm bells for the excessive amount of pesticides in fruit and vegetables consumed on the European market and, by extension, on the internal market are “sounded” by the data recorded in the rapid notification system for food and feed (RASFF).
According to data released yesterday by the Association of Hellenic Exporting Companies – Marketing of Fruits – Vegetables and Juices Incofruit Hellas in the previous commercial period 2023/24 (ss refers to the period 1/9/2023-31/8/2024) more than 800 boxes of products were registered that are imported in the Community, from Member States or third countries, with pesticide residue results, of which 580 showed an excessive quantity and were rejected and destroyed at the EU borders.
Reduced rejections
It is worth noting that compared to the previous trading period, the number of rejections appears to have decreased, but remains at alarming levels.
More specifically, the markets with the highest alert are Turkey and Egypt. As an indication, it is reported that 22.4% of these rejections correspond to fruit and vegetables imported from Turkey, which received 130 notifications in total.
Bell peppers are the product imported from Turkey that has had the highest number of cases of pesticide overdose, with 37 cases. They were followed by lemons with 33 cases of high-level pesticide residues, pomegranates with 10 alerts, grapefruit and grape leaves with 9 cases of each product, tangerines with 7 and oranges with 6 cases.
Turkey is followed by Egypt in the number of pesticide overdose reports, with a total of 84 cases, of which 30 cases were detected in oranges, 9 in peppers and 8 in strawberries.
Pesticide residues were also detected in fruits and vegetables imported from Spain with 19 cases, from Italy with 11 alerts, from Morocco in 6 cases, from France in 4 cases, two from the Netherlands, while only one case was considered positive in Portugal.
A total of six cases of rejected fruits and vegetables were detected in our country.
The remaining 580 compliance notices are distributed to fruits and vegetables imported from various countries around the world.
In Greece
It is worth noting that most of the rejections of fruit and vegetables from Turkey were made by Bulgaria. It remains questionable how many rejections were made at the Greek border, given our proximity to the Turkish market, and whether internal control mechanisms develop timely reflexes to prevent fruit and vegetables containing excessive use of pesticides that are dangerous for public health from being channelled to the Greek market.