FSSAI issues Guidance Document & SOPs on fixing pesticides residue in foods

The FSSAI has issued a draft of Guidance Document & Standard Operating Procedures for fixing Maximum Residue Limits (MRLs) of pesticides in food commodities.

The Guidance Document-SOP consists of 10 sections prescribing requirements for framing the Guidelines and its importance, SOP related to the generation of residue data as per the Good Agriculture Practices (GAP) such as number of trials to be conducted, plot size, crop variety, locations and pesticide application.

Besides, the document prescribes the sampling and residue analysis, metabolism studies in MRL fixation and the guidelines for risk assessment keeping in view the latest international procedures for utilisation of GAP and critical GAP (cGAP) data in (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development - OECD) MRL calculator and the utilisation of monitoring data of India for MRL fixation on spices.

According to the FSSAI, the review group has recommended the pre harvest interval (PHI) on vegetables and fruits as 3 and 15 days, respectively. The average body weight as per existing practice to be 50 kg based on Indian studies while adoption of average food consumption factor partly moderated from the latest National Institute of Nutrition (NIN) data.

The document also describes dietary exposure of pesticide residues to human beings based on consumption of various food commodities, hazard identification, risk characterisation and details of the commodities that are processed before consumption and extrapolation of MRL from the Raw Agriculture Commodity to the processed products.

This document also includes information on crop grouping of extrapolation for MRL and fixation of MRL on animal feed, meat, milk, offals and eggs.

FSSAI says that the presence of pesticide residues in food was a major concern for consumer safety and food trade. The Scientific Panel on Residues of Pesticides and Antibiotics of FSSAI in its 36th meeting held on May 21, 2015, recommended the constitution of a working group to document these guidelines. The working group has been meeting since 2015.

And after several rounds of discussions the Review Group submitted its report to the Scientific Panel in its 51st Meeting held on April 10, 2018. The comments of the Review Group were examined in detail by the Scientific Panel on Pesticide Residues in its various meetings. Based on the comments of the Review Group and suggestions and comments offered by the members of the panel, the ?Standard Operating Procedures on fixation of Maximum Residue Limits was prepared.

The objections or suggestions, FSSAI says, may be addressed to the Chief Executive Officer, Food Safety and Standards Authority of India, within 60 days from uploading of draft i.e., April 9, 2020, reads the FSSAI statement.

Method

According to the document, the calculation and fixation of maximum residue limit for pesticides approved in agriculture, the MRL is derived from supervised field trials adopting GAP.

The field residue data for all agricultural pesticides shall be used in order to calculate and fix MRLs, however monitoring data shall be used for certain specific spices wherever GAP does not exist.

The MRL was derived from statistical analysis of the residue data from the field trial. For this purpose, an OECD calculator is being used.

The field residue data were processed using the OECD calculator with which following information was derived: (1) Values for supervised trial median residues (STMR) (2) Highest Residue (HR) (3) Mean Residue (4) Maximum Residue Limit (MRL) unrounded (5) Maximum Residue Limit (MRL) rounded.  This calculation gives MRL based on Mean + 4 times Standard Deviation (SD).

The statistical analysis to derive MRL residue data vary based on evaluation of existing methods. MRL calculator is recommended for the calculation of MRL from residue data. The data is subjected to OECD MRL calculator, to get HR, MRL and STMR.

For the analysis of data from supervised field trials, a statistical calculator has been developed by OECD for determination of MRLs from valid field residue data. The calculation process is based on ‘mean + 4 SD’ methodology.