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Our Bureau

Kochi , Jan. 17

THE Joint FAO/WHO meeting on Pesticides Residues (JMPR) held recently in Rome has recommended maximum residue levels (MRLs) for spices and dried chillies and all the recommendations are expected to be approved by the next meeting of the Codex Committee on Pesticides Residues (CCPR) in The Hague in April this year.

The JMPR has recommended MRLs for spices based on monitoring data. More importantly, JMPR agreed on the application of the dehydration factor of 10 to extrapolate MRLs from fresh peppers to dried chillies, resulting in a number of MRLs for various pesticides on these commodities. The submission of the Spices Board on the dehydration factor convinced the JMPR on the use of the factor of `10'. All these recommendations will be discussed and hopefully approved at the next CCPR meeting in April, Mr S. Kannan, Director, (Marketing), Spices Board, told Business Line on Wednesday.

Collecting data by conducting field trials was found to be difficult and hence all the spices producing countries, including India, had collected the data through monitoring methods. These were complied, consolidated and presented before the JMPR, he said.

In the absence of internationally accepted MRLs, consignments were being rejected, at present, by the importing countries and once the recommended MRLs for spices and dried chillies are approved by the CCPR such rejections would be minimised.

Besides, it would enable the spices processing and exporting industry to guide the farmers on the use of pesticides in spices and chilli cultivation to keep the MRL below the acceptable levels, he said.

He said that the meeting had evaluated 31 pesticides, including three new compounds and 11 compounds re-evaluated within the periodic review programme of the CCPR.

It also allocated acceptable daily intakes (ADIs), acute reference doses (ARfDs) and, at the first time, interim ARfD. Interim ARfD was allocated for a compound that was not scheduled for toxicological evaluation for use in the acute dietary risk assessment. This value is derived on an ad hoc basis from available data from previous meetings and therefore called interim ARfD.

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