There are significant questions about the UK border testing regime for pesticides and whether it is extensive enough to detect shipments of food containing pesticide residues above the UK’s legal limits. Specifically:
- The UK tests a small fraction of produce that is imported or on sale to the public, only around three thousand 1kg samples of food per year. While this testing is useful to an extent, it only provides a snapshot in time because it is inconsistent and piecemeal. For example, mangoes might be tested one year and not the next and only a tiny proportion of mangoes consumed in the UK are tested. Similarly, the limited amount of samples tested does not reflect the huge range of produce available to the UK public.
- The Government argues that it’s unnecessary to test more than 3,000 samples of food per year because the UK runs a risk-based system which focusses on the food most likely to pose a threat to consumer health. However, in 2021, the Government failed to test three-quarters of the previous year’s produce of concern.
- There currently appears to be almost no scrutiny of the UK’s pesticide residue testing regime or its results. For example, PAN UK found some major errors in the 2021 published data which were not picked up by the Government nor any other public body.
- Despite the significant border control challenges posed by EU exit, the UK pesticide residue testing regime does not appear to have experienced a significant rise in investment or staff capacity. As a result, outside of the EU, it is highly likely that the UK lacks the infrastructure and resources required to adequately test imported produce for pesticide residues.
It is therefore fairly likely that food containing illegal levels of pesticides will be able to slip through the net and make it on to UK shelves.