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C1-IL: PESTICIDE RESIDUES ANALYSIS IN FOODS OF PLANT ORIGIN –
DEMANDS AND RESULTS OF EXPORT/IMPORT CONTROL
Smiljana Raičević, Miroslav Simić
Center for Food Analysis, Zmaja od Noćaja 11, Belgrade
Pesticides are widely used to protect crops before and after harvest from infestation by pests and plant diseases. As a consequence of their use, pesticide residues may be present in the food and feed. In order to ensure that the residues should not be found in food at levels presenting an unacceptable risk, the maximum residue levels (MRLs) of pesticides residues in food are established. EU regulation (EC) No 396/2005 [1] gives harmonized MRLs and the setting for monitoring and control of pesticides residues in raw commodities of plant and animal origin. Implementation of this Regulation ensuring better consumer protection and facilitates trading. Pesticide residues in food and feed in Serbia are regulated by new legislation harmonized with EU legislation (RS No 25/2010) [2].
Today, over a thousand pesticides are known [3] and many of them are still in use in different countries. In the EU, maximum residue limits (MRLs) have been set for more than 500 pesticides in over 300 defined commodities, and in the case for non-specified pesticide/product combinations a default MRL of 0,01 mg/kg applies. State competent authorities are responsible for control and enforcement of the MRLs of pesticide residues in food.
Only officially recognized laboratories, accredited in accordance with the standards ISO/IEC 17025 on ‘General requirements for the competence of testing and calibration laboratories’ for pesticide analyses could be involved in the analysis of samples from official controls [1, 2].
Center for Food Analysis is accredited laboratory, for standard analytical method for determination of pesticide residues in foods of plant origin using GC-MSD following – QuEChERS – method for samples preparation (EN 15662:2008). Quality assurance of results is achieved following Quality control procedure (SANCO/10684/2009) [4] and participating in well established PT scheme (FAPAS, UK). In this presentation, recent results of pesticide residues analyses of imported as domestic sample of fruits and vegetables, will be presented.
References
- Regulation (EC) No 396/2005 on maximum residue levels of pesticides in or on food and feed of plant and animal origin.
- Regulation on maximum residue levels of plant protection products in or on food and feed of plant origin, Official Gazette of the Republic of Serbia, No 25/2010, April 2010.
- http://ec.europa.eu/sanco_pesticides/public/index.cfm
- SANCO/10684/2009. Method validation and quality control procedures for pesticide residues analysis in food and feed, European Commission, 2009.
Smiljana Raičević, PhD, chemist, is the Head of the Instrumental Chemistry Department and the Quality Manager at accredited laboratory – Center for Food Analysis, Belgrade. She has over 20 year of experience in food analysis, especially on residues of pesticides and veterinary drugs in food. She has broad experience with method validation, QA/QC programs for residues analysis and PTS participation. She has been involved in Institute for standardization of Serbia as a member of the Commissions KSE 034 Food Analysis methods. She also works as lead assessor to ISO 17025 for Accreditation Board of Serbia.
