The annual study carried out by the European Commmission since 1996 on pesticides remnants found in cereals, fruit, vegetables and processed food has just been published on the European Commission website.
It refers to the fifteen countries of the European Union before the enlargement as well as Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein. It reveals that 58% out of 47,500 samples tested did not contain remnants of the 519 selected pesticides whereas 37% showed traces of substances below the maximum level of remnants called RML. Only 3.3% contained amounts beyond the authorised norm. We should point out that France is classified above the average, since 6.7% of samples indicated remnants of pesticides above the norm, even if this percentage shows a decrease compared to the 8.9% found in 2002. 50% didn't contain any pesticide at all and 44% showed some remnants. Tests revealed that the concentration of many remnants was present especially in peppers, grapes, cucumbers and egg-plants.
