New Zealand Food Safety (NZFS) has announced today that glyphosate residue limits for wheat, barley and oats for human consumption will stay at 0.1mg/kg. Restrictions will be introduced on permitted use.
NZFS deputy director-general Vincent Arbuckle says the decision involved careful consideration of industry, stakeholder, and public feedback, and that it reflects recent changes in how New Zealand growers are using glyphosate.
“We’ve decided the existing glyphosate MRL of 0.1mg/kg is appropriate and can be set as the limit moving forward.
“Although we are confident the proposed limits would not have presented any health risks to consumers, after considering more than 3100 submissions and meeting with a broad range of submitters and stakeholders, we found compelling evidence that the way glyphosate is used in New Zealand has changed over the past five or six years.
“Growers and millers have increasingly entered into contractual arrangements that require no, or extremely low, glyphosate residues in grains used for food, effectively prohibiting pre-harvest use of glyphosate.”
However, Mr Arbuckle notes that MRLs for dry field peas have been changed.
“For dry field peas, we have decided to set the MRL at 6mg/kg as proposed. This is in line with industry agricultural practice and aligns with the Australian, European Union (EU), United Kingdom (UK) and Codex MRLs of 10mg/kg for dry peas, and the United States’ 8mg/kg limit. Dry field peas are a relatively small crop in New Zealand, and the majority of product is exported to markets with similar MRLs.”
To ensure that industry practice is maintained and controlled, NZFS will require (through labelling changes) that when glyphosate is used on wheat, barley, and oats grown for human consumption, it can only be applied before crops emerge. It will no longer be allowed to be applied directly onto cereal crops grown for human consumption.
Mr Arbuckle noted that agricultural chemicals play a critical role in managing outbreaks of pests and diseases, reducing the risks to plant and animal health, and in helping to keep food prices down, because crops and animals can produce more when there are fewer pests.”