The latest 'Dirty Dozen' report from the Pesticide Action Network (PAN UK) has found a quarter of vegetables and three-quarters of fruit contain multiple pesticides.

Up to 123 different chemicals were found in the 17 types of fruit and vegetable tested. They include 42 pesticides with links to cancer and 21 known to interfere with hormone systems, potentially leading to birth defects, developmental disorders and reproductive problems. Grapes were one of the worst offenders with one single sample containing residues of 16 different pesticides.

The Dirty Dozen is based on PAN UK’s analysis of the UK government’s pesticide residue testing programme and reveals the produce most likely to contain cocktails of multiple pesticides (i.e. residues of more than one pesticide).

Read the full report here.

The most common Highly Hazardous Pesticides (HHPs) detected were two fungicides – imazalil and thiabendazole. Each appeared in 9% of samples (131 out of 1,494) of mostly fruit, including grapefruit, bananas and melons. Fungicides are used to control fungus and mould, often while produce is being stored or transported. Both imazalil and thiabendazole are suspected endocrine disruptors with possible links to cancer.

Up to 29% of the pesticides detected are not approved for use by British farmers, often because of the harms they cause to health or environment. However, these chemicals end up in UK food regardless, because growers in non-EU countries use them on crops that are then exported to the UK. The government’s own expert body has repeatedly highlighted how this arrangement disadvantages British farmers.

Safety limits are set for one pesticide at a time, completely ignoring the fact that it’s all too common for food to contain multiple chemicals. The truth is we know very little about how these chemicals interact with each other, or what this exposure to hundreds of different pesticides is doing to our health in the long-term. What we do know is that pesticides can become more toxic when combined, a phenomenon known as ‘the cocktail effect’.

Given how high the stakes are, the government should be doing everything it can to get pesticides out of our food.

Find out more about the dangers of pesticides and how to avoid them in your garden here. And don't forget - you can still sign the open letter to stop pesticides being sold in supermarkets.