National Agricultural Products Quality Management Service Strengthens Residual Pesticide Testing on Agricultural Products

Expansion to 464 Types of Residual Pesticide Test Components for Agricultural Products and Expiration of 689 Provisional Registered Pesticides

An employee of the National Agricultural Products Quality Management Service is collecting samples for a safety investigation.
Photo by National Agricultural Products Quality Management Service

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Kim Chunsu] The Damyang Office of the Jeonnam Branch of the National Agricultural Products Quality Management Service (Director Kim Seongdam, hereinafter ‘NAQS’) announced on the 16th that it will strengthen the safety management of agricultural products by expanding the number of pesticide residue test components from 320 to 464 starting January 2022.

This expansion of pesticide residue test components will apply to domestically produced agricultural products and export agricultural products from January 2022.

From January this year, pesticides with expired provisional registration can no longer be used on the corresponding crops.

Before using leftover pesticides with expired provisional registration purchased last year, special attention must be paid to confirm whether they can be used on the relevant crops.

The pesticide maximum residue limit (MRL) strengthening system sets residue limits for pesticides registered domestically and internationally for each agricultural product, and for pesticides without established residue limits, a uniform standard of non-detection level (0.01 mg/kg) is applied.

The list of pesticides with expired provisional registration (689 items) can be checked on the Pesticide Safety Information System. Among the 689 unregistered pesticides, 668 have completed test registration for alternative pesticides, but pesticides necessary for controlling certain crops such as turmeric and coffee, which currently have no alternative pesticides, are planned to be registered within this year.

An NAQS official stated, “We expect that the improvement of pesticide residue analysis methods and the expansion of test components will further strengthen the safety management of domestically produced and export agricultural products,” and emphasized, “We urge farmers in the field to complete pesticide safety usage training conducted by NAQS and local governments and to strictly comply with pesticide safety usage standards.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.