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AgVetLink: Number 51, August 2005

MRL update

NZFSA has gazetted the second amendment for the year to the New Zealand (Maximum Residue Limits of Agricultural Compounds) Food Standards 2005 (the MRL standards). 

Amendment 2 comes into force on 28 August 2005.  As mentioned in the last issue of AgVetLink, it was considerably larger than previous amendments and contained several changes to the MRL standards such as:

•         a reformatting of the MRL table, including adding a CAS number and residue definition column and altering terms to be consistent;

•         a proposal to include MRLs below the 0.1 mg/kg default MRL for 40 plant compound active ingredients that have been reassessed; and

•         removal of three obsolete plant compounds and their MRLs.

In addition to the above changes, Amendment 2 set three MRLs and one MRL exemption.  NZFSA is planning a consolidation of the entire standard to bring it up to date with the formatting changes made in Amendment 2.

NZFSA will be consulting on a third round of amendments for the year in the near future.  This third round will propose:

•         removing several obsolete MRLs;

•         setting MRLs below the default MRLs for approximately 30 more reassessed plant compounds; and

•         setting several MRL exemptions.