Third of fresh food ‘contains a harmful cocktail of pesticides’

ONE third of food products contain harmful pesticides, a new report has found, with imported fruit and vegetables frequently containing chemicals banned for use in the UK.

More fresh produce than ever now features a “cocktail” of more than one type of pesticide, the Pesticide Action Network (Pan) revealed.

Using government testing data, the campaign group ranked the fruit and vegetables that were most likely to contain multiple pesticide residues.

Strawberries top the list, with 89.92 per cent containing multiple pesticide residues, and they were closely followed by lemons, of which 83.72 per cent featured a cocktail of pesticides.

A Pan spokesman said: “This could be due to the rise in UK pesticide use. For example, the area of UK land treated with pesticides rose by 63 per cent from 1990 to 2016 [the latest figures from the Government]. Many crops are sprayed with pesticides far more times in a

growing season than they used to be. In 1990 only 30 per cent of cereals were treated more than four times in a growing season. By 2016, that figure had almost doubled to 55 per cent.”

Almost a third (32 per cent) of food tested by the Government in 2019 – including meat, fish, grains and dairy – contained multiple pesticides, up from 23.5 per cent the previous year. Fruit and vegetables contain even more; 48 per cent of those tested contained a mixture of pesticides, up from 36 per cent. Fruit is one of the worst offenders, with 67 per cent containing multiple pesticides. Some 94 per cent of oats and 27 per cent of bread also contained the “cocktail of chemicals”.

The Soil Association and the Wildlife Trusts have asked the Government to force farmers to curb their use of pesticides and herbicides, as they harm biodiversity. The Government will soon publish its National Action Plan for the Sustainable Use of Pesticides.

Nick Mole, the Pan policy officer, said: “Pesticide residues aren’t listed anywhere on food labels, so the ‘dirty dozen’ [Pan’s list of foods with the most pesticide residues] is the only way for British consumers to get a sense of which pesticides appear in their food.”

A government spokesman said part of the reason the pesticide data was going up was better testing. They said that it “uses the latest technology for analysis, which is constantly improving, and means that each year we can look for more pesticides at lower levels”.