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Inspection of imported fruit and vegetables revealed pesticides and heavy metals

12/03/2014
 
The Czech Agriculture and Food Inspection Authority (CAFIA) has checked 5,213 lots of fresh fruit and vegetables during 2 months' effect of Government Regulation No. 211/2014 which orders importers to notify CAFIA of imports of goods to the place of destination. The notification shall be carried out 48 hours before the arrival of the consignment. The Regulation came into force on 3rd October 2014 and 23,543 consignments have been notified so far.
Within these inspections, CAFIA took 649 samples for laboratory analyses which monitor presence of pesticides, chlorates, heavy metals, streptomycine, polyaromatic hydrocarbons, and also variety authenticity and homogeneity of potatoes.
CAFIA found 9 non-compliant lots so far:
  • Carrots from Poland, limits for lead and cadmium were exceeded,
  • 3 lots of tomatoes from Poland, limit for pesticides was exceeded,
  • Salad cucumbers from Poland, limit for pesticides was exceeded,
  • 2 lots of potatoes from Austria, variety homogeneity was not met,
  • 2 lots of potatoes from Germany, variety homogeneity was not met.
As regards 2 lots from Poland – 1x tomatoes and 1x salad cucumbers – analysis proved presence pesticide for treatment of vegetables – dinotefuran, which is not authorised in the EU and which means that vegetables were treated illegal way.
The inspection on the sport revealed violation of legislation in case of12 lots, out of which 3 cases concerned poor quality and 9 cases concerned insufficient labelling.
Significant effort of CAFIA is devoted in particular to operators who fail to meet their information obligation and carry out illegal imports or operate illegal storages, namely in areas near borders. Within these inspections, CAFIA detected illegal storages where tens of tons of fruit and vegetables were banned, for more information see the Press Release of 24th November 2014.
 
 Article by: Pavel Kopřiva, CAFIA Spokesperson
3. 12. 2014