EU Raises Tea Pesticide Residue Standards, How Can Tea Enterprises Respond to Export Obstacles

Starting August 25, the EU's tea pesticide residue standards abruptly doubled - export obstacles, how can tea enterprises "do as the Romans do"

"This EU regulation has had too great an impact on me." On the morning of the 22nd, as soon as work started, the reporter got through by phone to Wang Xiaoming, president of the Yixing Xiangzhen Tea Cooperative, and he was busy discussing countermeasures with colleagues. What gave him a headache was the newly introduced EU Directive 87/2014, which officially took effect on August 25.

Control under the original standards was already not easy

"The new directive mainly involves 4 pesticide residue indicators, including isoproturon, picoxystrobin, pyrimethanil and acetamiprid. The standards are all doubled compared with before, with content changing from 0.1ppm to 0.05ppm. In addition, it adds testing for tolfenpyrad residues in Chinese tea." Sun Guofang, deputy director of the Food Supervision Division of the Jiangsu Entry-Exit Inspection and Quarantine Bureau, said that acetamiprid is a recommended pesticide for tea production in China, so the new rules have a great impact on China's tea exports. "Acetamiprid was originally not within the scope of EU pesticide residue testing. It is quite effective in controlling tea pests and diseases such as smaller green leafhoppers, aphids, scale insects, diamondback moths, leaf rollers and longhorn beetles. Coupled with low use cost, about one yuan per packet, with only two or three packets needed per mu of tea garden, it is used very widely." Wang Xiaoming said that controlling pesticide residue content to 0.1ppm was already quite difficult. Now that the standard has doubled again, they can only look for new alternative pesticides. A packet of the same specification may cost about ten yuan, and the effect is not necessarily good.

The Yixing Xiangzhen Tea Cooperative is a major tea export base in our province, with 53 tea farms and more than a thousand tea farming households distributed in the Zhangzhu mountainous area, a total tea garden area of nearly 20,000 mu, and annual exports of more than 2 million US dollars. With unified product management and unified pesticide supply, the cooperative effectively controls product quality, has obtained qualifications for export to the United States and the EU, and has secured tea farmers' incomes. Even the late spring tea originally used as fertilizer, after organized collection, increased income by more than 500 yuan per mu.

The EU revises pesticide residue limits every year

As China's largest green tea consumer market, the EU has revised its new tea pesticide residue limit standards almost every year since implementing them on July 1, 2000, thus becoming the region with the strictest requirements for tea pesticide residues. "The EU's tea testing indicators were originally 96, and now they have increased to more than 480, among which there are also 6 mandatory testing indicators, none of whose content may exceed 0.1ppm." Wang Xiaoming worries that tea exports will become increasingly difficult in the future.

Pesticide residues are the weak spot of tea export enterprises. Data show that this year China's tea exported to the EU has been notified by the EU in 18 batches, with excessive pesticide residues as the main cause. According to experts, using pesticides for pest control is almost a common practice in agricultural production in various countries, and agricultural products that completely do not use chemical pesticides account for only 3%-5% of the total. China's exported tea is mainly summer and autumn tea. In hot weather there are many pests and diseases, and pesticide residues are difficult to avoid. According to Sun Guofang, China's tea pesticide residue testing has a total of 28 items, far fewer than developed countries. As for tea production standards, they are only equivalent to the level of the EU, South Korea and Japan in the 1970s and 1980s.

In our province's and China's agricultural product exports, although tea is not the main player - last year the whole province exported a total of 26 batches and 227 tons after inspection and quarantine - its "export experience" is representative. Under the current international trade environment, there are numerous green environmental protection labels, and safety thresholds are getting higher and higher. From Japan's Positive List System to the EU's newly issued directive this time, various countries attach great importance to the safety of imported food. For tea export enterprises, the urgent task is to find a way to respond.

The best approach is to align with international standards

Wang Xiaoming plans to open up other markets as soon as possible, such as Japan, which has not yet set limits on acetamiprid content in tea. Gu Weizhong, a staff member of the Tea and Fruit Station of the Yixing Agriculture and Forestry Bureau who has long dealt with tea, suggested that, given that organic production is unlikely to become mainstream because of excessively high costs, alternative pesticide varieties can be chosen. Yin Fusheng, general manager of Jintan Xinpin Tea Industry Co., Ltd., which also does export business, holds a similar view: "China exports large quantities of bulk drugs and intermediates every year, which are made into finished products by foreign enterprises and then sold back to us. Whichever country the tea is to be exported to, use that country's pesticides, and then it will not be restricted."

Some industry insiders also believe that from a long-term perspective, higher foreign technical thresholds can force China to further standardize tea production and help enhance environmental awareness in tea cultivation and processing. On the other hand, the frequent raising of pesticide residue standards for tea and other foods and agricultural products by the EU and other developed countries exposes, by contrast, that China's relevant testing standards are relatively low. On July 9, the Consumers Association conducted a comparative test on 50 kinds of Longjing tea sold on the Beijing market, and the results showed that all contained pesticide residues, though the indicators were all within the ranges stipulated by national standards. In addition, for the EU's newly added tolfenpyrad residue testing, the National Food Safety Standard Maximum Residue Limits for Pesticides in Food (GB2763-2014) does not specify a maximum residue limit for tea. Facing a broader international market, the formulation of relevant domestic standards should also align as quickly and as much as possible.