Results from the Danish monitoring programme on pesticide residues from the period 2012-2017 - frequencies and trends in detected pesticides.

In order to assess compliance with maximum residue levels in foods and evaluate the exposure of the Danish population to pesticides, a comprehensive monitoring programme was conducted. The work from 2012-2017 involved testing pesticide residues in fruits, vegetables, cereals, animal product and processed commodities. The sampling strategy, mainly based on exposure calculations and previous findings, involved the collection of 13,492 samples primarily from fresh conventional and organic produces on the Danish market. The origin of the samples varied, with 34% being of Danish origin and 67% originating from EU and non-EU countries. The results revealed that residues in conventionally grown produce were detected in 54% of the fruit and vegetable samples, and 30% of the cereal samples. Additionally, residues above the maximum residue limits were found in 1.8% of these samples, most frequently in fruits. As previous years, more residues were found in samples of foreign origin compared to samples of Danish origin. Compared to earlier findings more than 40 pesticides were detected for the first time and including boscalid, imidacloprid, thiacloprid, etofenprox, and spinosad, all detected more than 100 times. The data shows that detection of PFAS pesticides has increased dramatically, from 24 in 2006 to 412 in 2022.

Cumulative dietary risk assessment of pesticides in food for the Danish population for the period 2012-2017.

The cumulative chronic dietary exposure for the Danish population were assessed using Danish food monitoring data for the period 2012-2017 and Danish food consumption data for the consumer groups children (age 1-2, age 4-6 and age 7-14 years), adults age 15-75, high consumers and consumers eating Danish produced fruit and vegetables whenever possible. Levels below the Limit of Reporting (LOR) were set to ½ LOR with correction. For risk assessment of the cumulative chronic dietary exposure we used the Hazard Index (HI) method where the Hazard Quotient (HQ) was calculated for each pesticide and summed up to a HI. The HI was calculated to be below 1 for all consumer groups; i.e. 0.36 for children age 4-6 years and 0.13 for adults, indicating that the cumulative chronic dietary pesticide exposure is unlikely to constitute a health risk for Danish consumers, even for high consumers eating 600 g or more of fruit and vegetables each day. By eating Danish produced commodities whenever possible, the HI was reduced by a factor of one third for both children and adults. 25 different commodities contributed to about 90% of the HI and to 84% of the exposure.