Michael T. Hetmanski

Pesticides are widely used in agriculture to protect crops and to improve efficiency of production. Consequently, governments, food producers and food retailers have a duty to ensure that any residues occurring in foods for human consumption are at or below statutory maximum residue levels (MRLs). Regulation EC 396/2005 adopted in the European Union sets MRLs for more than 500 different pesticides in over 300 different food commodities.