Enforcement, pesticide regulations

Suitable (reliable and cost-effective) analytical methods are needed mostly in order to enforce pesticide residue regulations, to provide toxicological risk assessment data, and to study pesticide fate in the food chains and the environment. 

The principles of validation of residue methods for food, water and soil are generally the same. However, not all procedures and requirements are identical. From the public s point of view, the information on residues in food is probably the most important task. Compared with the other two areas (water and soil), the food sector is characterized by the largest number of regulations and legal limits. Therefore, this overview of validation requirements of enforcement methods will focus on methods for pesticide residues in food. 

Activities to control the manufacture and use of hazardous chemicals know no boundaries. While North American and European nations are most intense in their regulations and enforcement, there remains wide spread use of harmful substances in countries that are primarily agrarian. While a company may be prevented from manufacturing or selling a banned substance in one country, it may continue to manufacture it in another country which has no restrictions (or lack enforcement). India and China, for example, are primary producers of pesticides and herbicides that have been banned in most western countries. 

Enforcement of EC regulations on pesticide residues in foodstuffs is the responsibility of the competent authorities in the Member States. The authorities in each Member State should ensure that the products produced in that country and those imported directly from countries outside the EU ( Third Countries ) comply with EC legislation. In principle, when such a system is fully developed and operational in all Member States, there should be no real need for countries to examine products coming from other Member States. 

In addition to the need for scientific improvements to allow probabilistic risk assessments to be properly performed and interpreted, there also exists a need to educate stakeholders about what the US system for tolerance establishment and monitoring does and does not do. In simplest terms, the US system can be described as a food quality system but not necessarily a food safety system. This results from the fact that the pesticide tolerances are not safety standards but rather exist as enforcement tools that allow an assessment of how well pesticide application regulations are adhered to. Violative residues demonstrate the likelihood of pesticide misuse but should not be considered, in the vast majority of cases, to represent unsafe residues. Safety considerations govern whether or not the use of pesticides on specified commodities will be permitted tolerances, when granted, serve as indicators of good agricultural practices rather than as toxicological benchmarks. 

Regulations for the control of pesticides exist in most countries, but enforcement of these regulations is frequently ineffective. 

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