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Overview
Overview
Participation by the grains and horticultural industries in the National Residue Survey (NRS) plant product random residue monitoring program is based on marketing and trade-related decisions made by the participating industries. The primary function of NRS is to monitor chemical residues and environmental contaminants in the products of participating industries. Export and domestic marketing initiatives are underpinned by Australia’s status as a producer of clean food. Surveys for chemical residues are important as a measure of overall product quality.
The 2007–2008 financial year was again marked by drought conditions in parts of Australia. The dry conditions meant that Australia’s grain harvest was lower in terms of volume and exports for winter crops, and therefore sample numbers were also reduced. However, an above-average harvest was recorded for sorghum which provided an offset to stockfeed shortages.
Outputs
Outputs of the plant product random monitoring program are:
- provision to stakeholders of independent, authoritative and technically-sound residue data, reports and advice on Australian grain and horticultural
- products provision of residue monitoring data to meet the specific market access support requirements of participating industries.
Highlights
Grains
As a result of the comprehensive industry 2003 Grains Review of the NRS grains project, an export container and bag sub-project was established in late 2004. Grain exports through containers and bags continue to grow, and now about 50 companies throughout Australia sample grain for residue testing when it is loaded into shipping containers and bags. The sub-project has increased its sample collection rates by over 300% in the past two years.
Acting upon a recommendation of the same review, NRS, in conjunction with industry and with relevant departmental input, drafted legislative changes to establish 0.015% ad valorem levies for 13 additional grains in the random residue testing program.
hese regulations came into effect from 1 July 2007. The new commodities in the program are coarse grains (maize and triticale), pulses (cow pea, faba bean, lentil, mung bean, navy bean, pigeon pea and vetch) and oilseeds (linseed, safflower, soybean and sunflower). However, no samples for cow pea, linseed, navy bean, pigeon pea, safflower or vetch were collected for residue testing during 2007–2008, due to low production volume in the drought conditions.
A mycotoxin monitoring project was again run during 2007–2008 for 150 grain samples. The sample collection method was altered to collect 6 kg samples instead of 1 kg samples in order to provide more homogenous and representative samples. NRS also started a pilot targeted herbicide project in 2007–2008, in which 246 samples were analysed for a range of herbicides.
Horticulture
Following discussions with Apple and Pear Australia Limited, the apple and pear random monitoring project was continued at the level of the previous year (610 samples in all, comprising 469 apple and 141 pear samples). The project maintained the previous sampling regime in which approximately half the samples were collected by third-party samplers and the other half were collected from packing sheds. All samples were subjected to the same pesticide and environmental contaminant screen.
01 Mar 2010