EFSA, 125,000 Samples and What European Residue Monitoring Means for Brazilian Exporters
The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) published the latest data on the monitoring of pesticide residues in food, based on over 125,000 samples collected across Europe [¹]. The report confirms that compliance with the Maximum Residue Limits (MRLs) established in the European Union remains high and that the risk to human health from pesticide residues in food remains low. The data is collected annually under the framework of Regulation (EC) No 396/2005 [²], which unifies MRLs for pesticides and applies to both internal production and imports from any origin.
Three control programs
The report analyzes data from three distinct programs: the EU-coordinated program, which offers a representative picture of the European market with the selection of priority commodities and substances defined by the European Commission every three-year cycle; national controls conducted by the competent authorities of the Member States, focusing on each country's supply chains; and monitoring linked to reinforced border controls, which focuses on origins and substances with a documented history of non-compliance.
Reinforced border controls and the RASFF cycle
The third program — reinforced border controls — is what directly concerns the Brazilian exporter. When a food imported into the EU has a history of non-compliance with European MRLs, the substance and country of origin become subject to systematic inspection at the point of entry. The practical consequence of a violation detected at this stage is notification to the Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF) [⁴], followed by reshipment of the cargo to the country of origin or, in cases of risk classified as serious and immediate, destruction of the batch. These events are recorded in the public RASFF database and feed into the eligibility criteria for subsequent reinforced control, creating a cycle of scrutiny that intensifies with each accumulated notification for that substance and origin combination.
Asymmetry between Brazilian and European MRLs
The central point of attention for Brazilian agribusiness is the relationship between the MRLs set by Regulation (EC) No 396/2005 [²] and the Maximum Residue Limits defined by ANVISA (Brazilian Health Regulatory Agency) in Brazil (RDC No 4/2012 [³], specific MRLs published in the individual monographs of each active ingredient). The two references are built with distinct methodologies, based on good agricultural practices evaluated in different climatic and cultivation contexts. An active substance may have an MRL established in Brazil — determined based on good agricultural practices registered with MAPA (Brazilian Ministry of Agriculture) and ANVISA's toxicological assessment — and, at the same time, not have a specific MRL in the EU for that use. When this occurs, Regulation (EC) No 396/2005 automatically imposes the default limit of 0.01 mg/kg, corresponding to the analytical quantification limit. This value is not a risk assessment-derived limit: it is the floor of instrumental detection. For substances applied to export crops, this asymmetry converts a residue within the Brazilian MRL into a violation of the European MRL.
The pesticide registration process in Brazil is conducted by three federal agencies: MAPA is responsible for agronomic efficacy assessment, ANVISA for toxicological assessment, and IBAMA (Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources) for environmental assessment. The final MRL for the domestic market derives from ANVISA's assessment, integrated into the dossier approved by MAPA. What the system does not automatically do is align this MRL with the European MRL — and Regulation (EC) No 396/2005 also does not recognize the Brazilian MRL as equivalent to the European one, except when there is a formal request for import tolerance, as provided for in Article 10 of the same regulation.
How to equalize the divergence
The regular way to address this divergence is to request import tolerance from the European Commission, with technical support from residue data generated in accordance with Codex Alimentarius and the requirements of guide SANCO/12571/2013. The process includes submission to EFSA, public consultation, scientific opinion, and, finally, regulation by the Commission. In practice, the total time between submission and publication of a new MRL by import tolerance is two to four years for substances without a history in the European database. The most immediate operational alternative is to map, by crop and by destination market, which active substances used in Brazil are listed in Part A of Annex I of Regulation (EC) No 396/2005 with a specific MRL and which are subject to the default limit of 0.01 mg/kg. This mapping precedes any decision on the mix of crop protection products in fields destined for export.
The EFSA report is, therefore, not just a European public health publication. For the Brazilian regulatory sector, it functions as an indicator of the level of attention that EU enforcement directs to pesticide residues in food [¹]. A volume of over 125,000 samples per year, distributed among internal monitoring, national controls, and border inspections, represents an analytical structure that does not distinguish the origin of compliance. The product must be within the European MRL regardless of what the exporting country's legislation establishes.
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