VietNamNet Bridge – The National Agro-Forestry-Fisheries Quality Assurance Department (Nafiqad) said local competent agencies have found higher-than-permitted insecticide residue rates in 17 batches of vegetables and fruits imported from China.

Illustrative image. – File photo

In its Document 986/QLCL-CL2 sent to China’s General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, Nafiqad listed lime, grape, persimmon, apple, turnip, mandarin, carrot and orange from the batches with higher chemical residues than allowed by Vietnam’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.

Notably, the residue of Propargite used to kill spiders in Chinese mandarin orange is 27.73 mg per kilogram while the permissible level is only three mg per kilogram. The residue of the fungus-killing chemical found in carrot is 2.98 mg per kilogram compared to the permitted rate of 0.2 mg per kilogram.

Nafiqad said most of those vegetables and fruits in the backlist originated from Guangxi, Yunnan and Shanghai, and asked Chinese authorities to track origins of those products and find effective solutions to deal with the problem.

According to Circular 13/2011/TT-BNNPTNT of Vietnam’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural development, agencies inspect 30% of a batch of goods when they detect food safety violations and 100% when two batches are found unsafe for users.

In October last year, the Plant Protection Department under the agriculture ministry tested 74 samples of vegetables and fruits and found higher insecticide residue rates than allowed in the two samples of persimmon and two samples of apple imported from China, accounting for over 5% of the total chosen samples.

In the first quarter this year, Vietnam spent nearly US$30 million importing vegetables and fruits from China and exported more than US$90.5 million worth of these products to the neighboring market.

Source: SGT