As a result of the EU review of pesticides and the reduction of the maximum residue levels (MRL) for 2,4-D to its LOD on July 1, the citrus industry has had to deal with a major world wide crisis.
2,4-D is widely used throughout the world as a post-harvest citrus treatment to reduce the risk of spoilage organisms entering the fruit and causing decay.
On May 22 the South African Citrus Marketing Forum issued a general notice stating that ?unless acceptance of 2,4-D residues is continued for the remainder of the current season the South African industry will forthwith be forced to dramatically curtail, and to all intents and purposes terminate, its supply to the UK market and to any other EU member state that takes a similar position?.
After some intense work to resolve this problem a data package supporting an MRL of 1.00ppm was submitted. Following a review of the data an MRL of 1.0ppm has been proposed to come into force on December 1. This proposal will be considered by t he EU MRL working party at their meeting on June 19-20.
The Pesticides Safety Directorate has indicated that if the EU MRL working group agrees on a substantive MRL at the June 19-20 meeting they will look sympathetically at establishing an import tolerance for the UK based on that approved at the meeting.
This import tolerance would come into effect in the UK and bridge the gap between July 1 and the time at which the new approved MRL becomes legally applicable.
If all goes well we hope that the 2,4-D crisis will be over, but we do not expect this to be the last crisis arising out of these changes to the pesticide regulations.
We are monitoring very carefully how (and if) this crisis is resolved so that we can deal as effectively as possible with similar problems in the future.
? The Pesticide Residues Committee?s fourth quarter monitoring report included 20 different fruit and vegetables. Seven of these exceeded the MRLs and one sample of pears exceeded the safety limit. There were however, no concerns for human health.
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