Food Law News - FAO/WHO/WTO/Codex - 2000

1-8 May 2000: COMMITTEE Pesticide Residues (32nd Session)

Codex Committee on Pesticide Residues,
32nd Session, The Hague, The Netherlands, 01-08 May 2000

The Committee:

• Recommended 67 new and revised MRLs for pesticides in or on specific food commodities for final adoption and identified 74 existing Codex MRLs for revocation by the 24th Session of the Codex Alimentarius Commission;
• Agreed on the priority list of pesticides to be evaluated by JMPR;
• Agreed on certain measures for improving harmonization of MRLs with those elaborated by the Codex Committee on Residues of Veterinary Drugs in Foods, including the amendments to the definitions of meat, fat and milk;
• Concluded that it was not feasible to establish MRLs for cereal-based foods and infant formula as the Committee had not established MRLs for composite products, and did not support the establishment of two MRLs, one for adults and the other for infants and children for a raw commodity used for preparing these products;
• Concluded that the establishment of an EMRL for camphechlor in fish was of low priority and agreed to revisit this issue in the future when more information became available;
• Agreed to consider at the next session:
  • risk analysis principles and methodologies used by the Committee;
  • factors other than science applied in the past or being applied currently in all elements of risk analysis and how, when and to what extent they have been used along with examples of their application;
  • consideration of chronic and acute dietary exposure within the framework of setting MRLs;
  • national policies regarding the protection of infants and children and which pesticides are of particular concern in this regard;
  • feasibility of establishing MRLs for genetically modified crops and metabolite residues;
  • parameters and criteria for assessing the suitability of analytical methods for pesticide residues;
  • elaboration of MRLs/EMRLs for spices; and
  • need for updating the Codex Classification of Foods and Animal Feeds;
• Received a report on general considerations by the 2000 JMPR which may have implications to the work of the Committee; and
• Noted the activities of OECD concerning minimum data requirements for establishing maximum residue limits including Import tolerances.