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Chemical residues up to 200 per cent above legal limits were found in fresh produce sampled for the Food Safety Authority.
The annual food residue surveillance programme tested unwashed capsicum, strawberries, lettuce, mushrooms and courgettes, from growers whom the authority will not name.
Only the courgette samples were all within the maximum residue levels for fungicides, insecticides and other agricultural chemicals.
In the other four categories, 10 of the 108 samples exceeded the legal limits by between 10 and 200 per cent.
Four of 36 strawberry samples were over the limit of 0.1mg of the fungicide cyprodinil per kilogram of fruit.
"I think that's too many. That's something we want to improve on," the authority's principal adviser on chemicals, Paul Dansted, said yesterday.
But he said the survey was not random, instead targeting potential problem areas. And none of the breaches was enough to create any food-safety or health concerns.
Being 10 per cent over the limit was "marginal", although 200 per cent, in the case of permethrin on a fancy lettuce sample, was "relatively high".
The growers involved were correcting their practices and he did not expect any would be prosecuted for the breaches.
Permethrin was registered in New Zealand but not for use on fancy lettuces.
"I think a grower might have made some assumptions that were not valid," Mr Dansted said.
One of the breaches - he refused to say which - was blamed on poor communication and language problems with harvesters of glasshouse produce which resulted in it being picked too soon after it had been sprayed.
The Pesticide Action Network's co-ordinator, scientist Dr Meriel Watts, said failing to prosecute rendered the food-safety system toothless.
"It's pointless having maximum residue levels unless legal action is taken when there's a breach. There's no incentive for them to stick to the law if when they breach it nothing happens to them."
Dr Watts said the breaches included chemicals that had been shown in animal trials to cause cancer or to be possible carcinogens.
