<p>It appears that even organic food isn’t completely safe from synthetic pesticides. Data collected by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) showed that between 2011 and 2013, nearly 46% of organic produce sold in Canadian grocery stores contained some amount of pesticide residue, according to CBC News. This may be frightening news to hear for most organic buyers and producers, though only 1.8% of the samples that tested positive for pesticides exceeded Canada’s maximum allowable limits. None of these test results posed a health risk, and the agency did not prevent any of the food from being sold as organic.<hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="invisible minimal-padding"><img src="https://cdn.andnowuknow.com/legacyWriterImages/canada011014body.jpg" alt="Images 011014" /><hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="invisible minimal-padding">Despite these challenges, organic produce was still found to be considerably more pesticide-free than the non-organic samples the agency tested. Just over 78% of the non-organic samples contained pesticide residues, violating the allowable limits 4.7% of the time. This begs the question then, how are pesticides finding their way onto produce?<hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="invisible minimal-padding">Matthew Holmes, executive director of the Canada Organic Trade Association, said that pesticides residues are seen throughout our environment – in the soil and the water. So while it’s difficult to have completely zero pesticide residues any longer, the amounts measured are very low, Holmes noted.<hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="invisible minimal-padding">“I think consumers are looking for not necessarily a zero level, but they’re looking to not contribute to the pesticide residues that are out there and they’re looking to reduce their exposure as much as possible. And I still think we’re seeing in this data that organic offers that,” said Holmes.<hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="invisible minimal-padding">Will we begin to see tougher standards placed on Canadian organics because of these findings? For now, consumers can be assured that organic produce still contain less pesticides than non-organics.</p><hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="invisible minimal-padding"><p><a class="btn btn-sm btn-primary col-lg-12" style="white-space: normal;" href=" http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/pesticide-residue-found-on-nearly-half-of-organic-produce-1.2487712" target="_new"> CBC News </a></p><hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="invisible minimal-padding">
