Organic and food safety - II

According to an organic newsletter from Biofach

Conventionally grown food in Europe is still heavily contaminated with
pesticide residues. Of the 17,039 samples from monitoring programmes and
official food safety measures in Germany in 2007, only 39 % were not
contaminated. 57 % of all samples were contaminated up to the
permissible limit. 4.5 % of products from Germany, 5 % from other EU
member states and 9.5 % of fruit and vegetable samples from non-EU
countries were above the legally permitted limit. Right at the top of
the list in the “National Report on Pesticide Residues 2007” is paprika
powder, of which up to 80 % is contaminated with a cocktail of as many
as 30 different chemical residues.
Organic food contained pesticide residues much less frequently and in
smaller amounts than conventionally grown food, but as many as 0.9 % of
these products were also contaminated above the legal limits.