§ Mr. Liddell-GraingerTo ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what recent guidelines have been introduced to monitor pesticides on vegetables and fruit. [55193]
§ Mr. MorleyThe Government conduct an annual pesticide residues surveillance programme for fruit and vegetables and other produce. This programme is overseen by the independent Pesticide Residues Committee (PRC). The PRC advises Ministers and the chief executives of the Food Standards Agency and the Pesticides Safety Directorate on pesticide residues in foods.
653WTypically around 4,000 food samples are tested each year for a range of pesticide residues at a cost of £2.2 million. The objectives of the programme are threefold:
To back up the statutory approvals process for pesticides by checking that no unexpected residues are occurring;To check that residues do not exceed statutory maximum residue levels (MRLs);To check that human dietary intakes of residues are within acceptable levels.Most samples tested currently are collected from retail outlets. Sampling is biased towards samples that are more likely to contain residues.
The scope of each year's programme and details of the samples analysed under the surveillance programme can be found on the PRC's website. The 2002 programme is on the website at www.pesticides.gov.uk/committees/ PRC/prc.htm. The 2003 programme is currently being developed by the Committee.
The Department of Health also undertakes a similar monitoring programme for produce distributed to children under the national school fruit scheme. Details of the results from testing will shortly appear on the PRC's website.
§ Norman BakerTo ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what estimate she has made of the amount of pesticide sprayed in each of the last five years on UK fields. [56019]
§ Mr. Morley[holding answer 14 May 2002]: DEFRA surveys indicate that the following quantities of agricultural pesticides were used in each year since 1996. The corresponding figure for 2001 is not yet available.
Tonnes of active ingredient 1996 34,115 1997 34,021 1998 33,680 1999 33,826 2000 30,930