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Food Safety

Maximum Residue Levels

The traces pesticides leave in treated products are called "residues".

A maximum residue level (MRL) is the highest level of a pesticide residue that is legally tolerated in or on food or feed when pesticides are applied correctly (Good Agricultural Practice).

Key points

  • The amounts of residues found in food must be safe for consumers and must be as low as possible.
  • The European Commission fixes MRLs for all food and animal feed
  • The MRLs for all crops and all pesticides can be found in the MRL database on the Commission website.

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