ASEAN Health (Food Safety) Experts participated in a workshop on June 20th 2022 to review recommendations developed by ARISE Plus Experts to monitor the exposure of consumers to residues resulting from the use of pesticides on leafy vegetables.
This event was a follow-up to the ARISE Plus intervention on the “Risk Profile of Pesticides use in Leafy Vegetable in ASEAN Member States”.
In addition to the 3 capacity building sessions, that were held, ARISE Plus experts developed a series of recommendations on continued regional activities that ASEAN Health Cluster 4 may implement to monitor the exposure of consumers pesticide residues, with the objective of enhancing trust in the safe use of pesticides.
The participants deliberated on several issues concerning the recommendations and the potential implementation in ASEAN. The discussions included consideration of the technical details such as sampling and conducting chemical analysis. Also the management aspects such as coordination and data collection and exchange were debated.
The participants were in agreement that there was clear merit in instituting a 3 year pilot programme on the monitoring of consumer exposure to pesticides residues through leafy vegetables in ASEAN Member States.
Issues that the ASEAN experts considered included those on sustainability of the programme and the potential use of the results to improve consumer safety through specific regulatory actions planning future monitoring programmes.
The workshop concluded that the proposal on the ASEAN 3-year Pilot Project on exposure monitoring should be forwarded to ASEAN Health Cluster 4 for incorporation into its future work plans.
