Prioritising plant protection products for national monitoring

The aim of the current study was to develop a method for prioritizing of active substances of plant protection products (PPPs), hereafter referred to as pesticides, and of Raw Agricultural Commodities (RACs) for monitoring. For this purpose, various current methodologies were compared, and a semi-quantitative method was selected that uses scores for the different criteria included. Since a frequent update of the prioritization should be possible, the aim was to develop a prioritization method that can automatically be updated with limited manual work. WFSR Report 2025.014 | 7 of 62 Summary The aim of the current study was to develop a method for prioritizing of active substances of plant protection products (PPPs), hereafter referred to as pesticides, and of Raw Agricultural Commodities (RACs) for monitoring. For this purpose, various current methodologies were compared, and a semi-quantitative method was selected that uses scores for the different criteria included. Since a frequent update of the prioritization should be possible, the aim was to develop a prioritization method that can automatically be updated with limited manual work. Pesticides framework The pesticides framework developed was a risk-based point approach taking both severity and probability of occurrence in food into account. Severity was assessed based on toxicity information of the PPPs available, such as Acute Reference Dose (ARfD) and carcinogenicity data. Probability of occurrence was used based on monitoring results and potential usage of the PPPs. A maximum of 600 points was assigned to both severity and probability where the latter was divided in 400 points for monitoring results and 200 points for PPP usage. Severity was assessed using information on acute effects (based on the ARfD), chronic effects (based on the Acceptable Daily Intake), endocrine disruption, genotoxicity and carcinogenicity. Monitoring data included both national and EU monitoring results as well as RASFF notifications. Finally, indications for PPP use were reflected by the approval status as active substance in PPP, the number of EU registrations, frequency of non-approved pesticides detected and whether pesticides were obsolete (world-wide banned, no longer used as PPP) or not. Various information sources were used to establish a long list of pesticides (n = 3628) that were included in the framework. Data sources included were both Dutch data and EU data (e.g. the EU pesticide database). In case of data gaps, default scores (20% of the maximum score) were assigned for a sub-criterion. Using all available information resulted in a final score per pesticide thereby allowing for a ranking. Data gaps on toxicological information can be minimised by exploring databases outside the EU, although this should be done with care since toxicological information is interpreted differently across the world. The scores assigned are subjective and could be evaluated using expert knowledge elicitation. Sensitivity analysis showed that when the toxicological category receives 10% less points, 23% percent of the components initially in the top100 are swapped with other pesticides. This 23% reflects pesticides between rank 70-100 that obtained about 90% of their total points from the toxicological category. The final ranking list was also validated against other available prioritized pesticide lists and showed that pesticides reported as high concern due to genotoxic or carcinogenic properties typically also rank high in the developed framework. From pesticides included on the list of Carcinogenic, Mutagenic and Reproductive (CMR) substances as published in the ‘Staatscourant’, 42 were missing in our top 20% due to their reproductive toxicity, a parameter that was not included in our current prioritization framework. This could be taken up in an update. RAC framework Analogous to the pesticides framework, RACs were prioritized using scores for three criteria. In this case, dietary information and monitoring results per RAC were used as estimation for exposure. Furthermore, trade information was added since this information is also relevant to include when deciding which RACs to include in a monitoring program. The dietary information included both chronic and acute consumption data for adults and children. Monitoring data included the same sub-criteria as in the pesticides framework (i.e., national and EU monitoring results per RAC as well as RASFF notifications). Finally, trade information included import volumes and production data. The same data sources were used as in the pesticides framework and allowed to prioritize RACs. This showed that peaches, apples, pears, bananas, mandarins, melons, mangoes, grapefruits, currants and pineapples were the top 10 highest scored RACs. Sensitivity analysis showed no significant changes in the ranking as a result of a 10% increase and/or decrease for each of the categories (i.e. dietary information, monitoring results and trade information). Comparison of the framework including dietary information of the EFSA PRIMo 3.1 or PRIMo 4 database showed noticeable differences for grapefruits, currants, pineapples, mangoes and plums (in the top 20 when PRIMo 4 is applied, not with the 3.1 version). Furthermore, the method was validated by comparison with a Swedish method. On average, the difference in ranking for the top 80 RACs was 5%. Conclusion Overall, both frameworks showed to be robust and can thus be applied as input for developing a risk-based monitoring program. The frameworks are flexible and allow for including or excluding criteria as well as adapting points assigned and can be updated relatively easily when information in the databases used is changed, updated, or extended. Two workshops with experts provided input for future updates.