BRUSSELS - Italy, after Germany and Romania, is the EU country that in 2019 analyzed more samples as part of the coordinated European program to check for the presence of pesticide residues.
It emerges from the Efsa report on the first year of application of the three-year plan, which analyzed samples collected randomly from 12 food products (apples, cabbage, lettuce, peaches, spinach, strawberries, tomatoes, oat grains, barley grains, wine, milk vaccine and pig fat).
Italy analyzed 1,520 samples, almost double the 828 required by the program as a minimum requirement.
France had to analyze at least 852 samples, but stopped at 762.
The controls provided for by the EU plan are added to the national ones for a total of 11,500 samples analyzed.
62.6% are free of residues, a higher percentage than the European figure (EU 27 plus the United Kingdom, Norway and Iceland), which stands at 53%.
36.2% have residues below the limits and 1.1% are non-compliant.
Of the total, 9,473 samples originate from Italy, 452 come from other EU member states, 1,309 from third countries and for 266 samples the origin is unknown.
