TACTRI launched "New Practice for the Safe Use and Inspection of Pesticides for Exported Produce"

New measures for the pesticide usage for exported produce

The export of fruits and vegetables in Taiwan has been growing year by year. However, due to different pesticide residue standards and irregular changes in various countries, information gaps often result in the risk of the products of farmers and exporters to become unqualified. In order to reduce the losses caused by the failure to meet the pesticide residue test standards for exported fruits and vegetables, and in response to the critical pesticide using period for exported mangoes in February, TACTRI launched the “New Practice for the Safe Use and Inspection of Pesticides for Exported Produce." In addition to developing a new service to provide inspection reports can be recognized by many countries, and dividing the countries by red, yellow, and green light, it compiled the pesticide usage standards in exported produce of various countries, provides fast and convenient information comparison. In addition, since last year (2018), TACTRI has become the only overseas pesticide residue inspection laboratory designated by South Korea, which has also significantly improved the efficiency of exporting produce to South Korea.

According to TACTRI, South Korea has become an emerging market for Taiwanese mangoes in recent years, the export value increased by 75.4% compared with the previous year in 2018 alone. The fact that South Korea directly recognition the inspection report of TACTRI can indeed save the exporter's time when waiting for inspection during customs clearance, further help the farmers improve the pass rate of pesticide inspection and export sales amount. In response to changes in the inspection standards for pesticide residues in various countries, TACTRI reminds exporters and fruit farmers to pay attention to the latest limits for pesticide residue in different countries. Take South Korea’s pesticide inspection standards for mangoes as an example. In January 2018, Korean prescriptions only set tolerance standards for 42 pesticides, but at the end of December 2018, the number had increased to 80. Among them, the number of pesticides approved for mangoes had increased by about 12, and the residual standards for three of which had been increased by 3-10 times. In addition, Japan also revised down the tolerance for Dimenin in January, which is commonly used in fruits and vegetables. The tolerance for Dimenin in mangoes and bananas were all trimmed from 0.5ppm to no detection. Edamame, carrots and broccoli were trimmed from 0.5ppm to 0.2ppm, and citrus was trimmed from 1ppm to 0.3ppm.

In view of the rapid and increasingly complex changes in pesticide residue testing standards in various countries, TACTRI take the advantage that the inspection reports can be accepted in different countries to assist exporters and fruit farmers in understanding whether products can meet multiple national residue standards since 2018, in order to improve buyers' willingness to acquire. Furthermore, TACTRI provides a convenient keyword query and “traffic light identification system”. People can quickly find the “pesticide usage standards for exported produce" by simply searching the keyword "export pesticide" This webpage instantly updates the latest information on the benchmarks for pesticide usage standards for exported produce in different countries, and divides the pesticides into three groups as "red, yellow, and green" from the concept of traffic lights. "Green" pesticides indicate that the residual standards for these pesticides in exported countries are looser than in Taiwan. "Yellow" is slightly stricter, and "Red" is relatively strict or even undefined standards. Farmers selling fruit for export should use "Green" pesticides as possible, and avoid “Red” pesticides and obey the safe harvesting period to reach the standard of export.

In response to the critical pesticide using period for exported mangoes in February, in addition to the information on the above web sites, TACTRI has prepared a usage standard summary table of pesticides used domestically and in major export countries, with the note of a list of recent residual standard changes and information of pesticides with better field trials results. TACTRI urges farmers and exporters to make good use of the new version of these lists, currently provided, and not to misuse the previous versions. The new version of the residual standard and related information will be promoted through the seminars held by the mango export technical service team and research and extension stations for growers to inquire and compare. If people need information about the inspection and residue standards of pesticides for export, they can directly contact the TACTRI, the Bureau of Inspection and Quarantine, or research and extension stations nearby. Hope that everyone will work together to check on pesticide residue inspections wisely, assist in the successful export of produce, and increase farmers' income!