Collaborative studies of methods for pesticides residues analysis

While certain countries informally screen foodstuffs for pesticide residues, others have established legal tolerances for them and such tolerances are under international consideration for agreement at FAO/WHO Codex Committee on Pesticide Residues and the European Economic Community. There is, therefore, the real possibility of rejection of a consignment of foodstuffs on the grounds of pesticide contamination. This would involve loss of money, reputation, and also commercial inconvenience; methods of analysis used for this purpose have to be the best and as foolproof as can be devised. Particular difficulty may be found in such analyses as very small amounts of pesticide are associated with relatively very large amounts of foodstuff and both very pure reagents, absorbents, etc., have to be used and also special care has to be taken with the techniques involved, e.g., column chromatography.