K A S H R U T . C O M_©

The following information is from the USDA and the IFT posted on January 20, 2015 .

"The U.S. Dept. of Agriculture’s (USDA) Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) has posted data from the 2014 Pesticide Data Program (PDP) Annual Summary, which confirms that overall pesticide chemical residues found on the foods tested are at levels below the tolerances established by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and do not pose a safety concern." "99% of the products sampled through PDP had residues below the EPA tolerances." Only 0.36% of the samples tested had residues exceeding the EPA tolernances. "n 2014, the USDA tested for pesticides in 10,619 samples of food, including 8,582 samples of fruits and vegetables; 314 samples of oats; 314 samples of rice; 1,055 samples of infant formula; and 354 samples of salmon. Domestic samples accounted for 75.5% the samples while 22.9% were imports, 0.7% were of mixed origin, and 0.9% were of unknown origin." "The PDP generally confirms the U.S. food supply is safe with respect to pesticide chemical residues."