Progress of Agricultural and Veterinary Drug residue Standards in Agricultural products and Foods in China

In order to find out the progress of the revision of China's agricultural and veterinary drug standards and the principle and scientific nature of the formulation of agricultural and veterinary drug residue standards, the reporter interviewed researcher Gu Baogen, a member of the expert Group on Agricultural products quality and Safety of the Ministry of Agriculture, Jian Qiu of the Pesticide Control Institute of the Ministry of Agriculture, and Zhang Cunshuai, a researcher of the China Institute of Veterinary Drug Supervision. The three experts made a clear response and interpretation on this issue.

Reporter: what are pesticide and veterinary drug residues? Will it affect human health if there are residues?

Experts: pesticide residues refer to the pesticide matrix, metabolites, reaction products and impurities that remain in agricultural products after the use of pesticides, while veterinary drug residues refer to edible animals after the use of veterinary drugs. drug prototypes, metabolites and impurities that accumulate or remain in animal tissues and organs or enter lactation animals or laying eggs. Just as we humans have to give injections and take medicine when we are sick, animals need to be treated with veterinary medicine, and crops with diseases and insect pests need to be prevented and treated with pesticides. No matter which country, pesticides and veterinary drugs are needed in agricultural production. Generally speaking, agricultural and veterinary drugs are used in large quantities in countries with a high degree of agricultural modernization. According to the statistics of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in 2000, the use of pesticides in developed countries is 1.5-2.5 times that of developing countries. Therefore, agricultural products produced by various countries will have pesticide or veterinary drug residues.

Agricultural products containing pesticide and veterinary drug residues do not mean unsafe, and whether they will affect human health depends on whether the residue exceeds the standard. Only the residue exceeds the standard, it will have an impact on the health of eaters. Agricultural products that do not exceed the standard will not have an impact on health.

Reporter: how are the safety standards for pesticide and veterinary drug residues established?

Experts: a unified pesticide and veterinary drug residue standard (MRL) has been established internationally, and China also adopts international standards and methods, which are the same as those of developed countries such as the International Codex Alimentarius (CAC) and Europe, America and Japan in terms of standard-setting techniques, rules and procedures.

The residue standard of agricultural and veterinary drugs is calculated based on the toxicity of drugs, the residues of drugs in agricultural products, and our food consumption structure, using risk assessment techniques. Usually you have to go through at least four steps. One is to determine the toxicity of pesticides and veterinary drugs through mammalian experiments, and to determine the allowable daily intake, that is, the amount of certain pesticides and veterinary drugs that are ingested from food or drinking water every day in a person's life without obvious harm to health. The second is to determine the metabolism and degradation process of pesticides in plants and veterinary drugs in animals through standardized residue experiments, in order to determine the main metabolites and distribution of pesticides and veterinary drugs in crops or animals, and then determine their residues. Third, according to the amount and structure of Chinese dietary consumption, determine each person's daily intake of all kinds of agricultural products and their ratio in the total food. The fourth is to determine the maximum residue limit through risk assessment calculation.

It should be pointed out that the residue standard is based on the maximum possible safety risk, that is, the maximum amount of certain agricultural products and the amount one is likely to eat every day of one's life. On this basis, taking into account the differences between species and the safety of pregnant women and children, the safety factor is increased by a factor of 100, that is, the standard value is usually 1% of the risk assessment safety value, so the standard is very strict. and there's a lot of insurance. Therefore, food containing pesticides, veterinary drug residues is not terrible, as long as the residue is lower than the standard is safe.

In accordance with international practice, the formulation of residue standards must follow the principles of technical science, fair rules and transparent process. In terms of rules, trade fairness is the principle. In accordance with the requirements of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement on Technical barriers to Trade (TBT Agreement) and the Agreement on the implementation of Sanitary and Phytosanitary measures (SPS Agreement), WTO members or organizations shall be informed of their proposed agricultural and veterinary drug residue standards and accept members' comments on the scientificalness and fairness of the standards. The residue standards of pesticides and veterinary drugs formulated in China have been officially evaluated by governments of various countries. In procedure, it is based on the principle of openness and transparency. In accordance with the requirements of openness and transparency of the Food Safety Law, the formulation of pesticide residue standards is open to the public throughout the process. At the drafting stage, the opinions of the domestic public and relevant industry departments need to be widely consulted on the official website. After being examined and approved by the National Pesticide residue Standards Review Committee, it is evaluated by the member states of the WTO and jointly promulgated and implemented by the Health and Family Planning Commission and the Ministry of Agriculture.

Reporter: how many pesticide and veterinary drug residue standards are there in our country?

Experts: the agricultural and veterinary drug residue standard is the safety valve of agricultural products. Before the promulgation of the Food Safety Law in 2009, there were some problems in the agricultural and veterinary drug residue standard in China, such as a small number of standards, lag in standard development, low level of technology and so on. After the promulgation of the Food Safety Law, China has accelerated the construction of the national standard system for agricultural and veterinary drug residues. Through more than five years of efforts, China has formulated a reference standard system for pesticides and veterinary drugs covering all important agricultural products, which provides a guarantee for ensuring the quality and safety of agricultural products.

In 2014, the Ministry of Agriculture and the National Health and Family Planning Commission jointly issued the national standard for food safety, maximum residue limits for pesticides in Food (MRLs-2014), which stipulated 3650 limits for 387 pesticides in 284 kinds of food. The residue limits stipulated in the standard cover 12 categories of crops or products, including vegetables, fruits, grains, oilseeds and oils, sugars, beverages, seasonings, nuts, edible fungi, mammalian meat, eggs, poultry offal and meat. In addition to conventional grains, vegetables and fruits, it contains agricultural residue limits for primary processed products such as fruit juices, preserved fruits and dried fruits. China has made restrictions on 135 kinds of veterinary drugs, including 94 kinds of veterinary drugs, involving the limit value of 1548, 9 kinds of veterinary drugs that can not be detected and 32 kinds of veterinary drugs prohibited.

Due to historical reasons, the number of agricultural and veterinary drug residue standards in China is still less than that in developed countries in Europe and the United States, but many residue standards in Europe and the United States are not only formulated for food safety. a large number of standards for agricultural products that are not produced in this region and at home are mainly for trade barriers. At present, China is the fastest country in formulating standards, and it is mainly formulated according to the needs of food safety. the existing pesticide and veterinary drug residue standards basically cover the types of plant and animal food that people often spend, which provides a guarantee for the food safety of our country.