The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has released its summary of findings for its Pesticide Residue Monitoring Program’s monitoring of human and animal foods in FY 2020.
The findings show that the levels of pesticide residues measured by the FDA in the U.S. food supply are generally in compliance with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) pesticide tolerances, and that the results from FY 2020 were similar to those from past years.
The COVID-19 pandemic impacted the FDA’s sample collection and analysis for the FY 2020 report in the following ways:
- Approximately 50 percent fewer human food samples and 70 percent fewer animal food samples were collected in FY 2020 compared with FY 2019.
- More import samples were collected in FY 2020 relative to domestic samples than in previous years.
- Domestic samples were not collected for the “Domestically Produced Animal Derived Foods” assignment (EU audit assignment).
Despite this impact, the results from samples collected and analyzed in FY 2020 demonstrated a compliance rate similar to what has been shown in previous years.
From Oct. 1, 2019, through Sept. 30, 2020, the FDA tested for approximately 750 different pesticides and selected industrial compounds on 2,078 human food samples (316 domestic and 1,762 import samples) in its regulatory monitoring program. Agency staff collected domestic human food samples from 35 states and imported human food samples from 79 countries/economies.
More information can be found at this link: FDA Releases FY 2020 Pesticide Residue Monitoring Report | FDA
