The proportion of wine containing multiple pesticide residues has increased from 14% in 2016 (the last time that wine was tested) to 50% in 2022.
Analysis of the UK government’s testing programme by non-profit PAN UK shows residues of 19 different pesticides (up from 16 in 2016) in the 72 wine samples tested, including nine chemicals with links to cancer. Six different pesticides were found in a single wine sample.
PAN said the findings “call into question the reliability of the UK’s regulatory system”, which carries out safety assessments solely for individual chemicals. Similar concerns have been raised regarded PFAS, or forever chemicals, given their widespread use and presence as ‘cocktails’ of chemicals that could pose human health and environmental risks.
The Wine and Spirit Trade Association has played the analysis down, calling it “sensationalist”. WSTA pointed to the fact that only one of the samples tested had pesticide residues above the permitted amount.
However, Nick Mole from PAN UK said: “This massive rise in ‘pesticide cocktails’ should be of grave concern because we know that chemicals can become more harmful when combined, and yet we continue to set safety limits for just one chemical at a time. Wine lovers shouldn’t have to risk exposure to an array of hazardous pesticides when they fancy a tipple. The organic wine sector is flourishing, proving that it is 100% possible to produce wine without relying on toxic chemicals.”
PAN UK said the overuse of pesticides in wine production not only poses a threat to the health of British consumers but also to those living and working in wine-producing areas. PAN UK referenced researchconducted in France which found “a slight increase in the risk of ALL [acute lymphoblastic leukaemia] in children living in areas with high viticulture density. This finding supports the hypothesis that environmental exposure to pesticides may be associated with childhood ALL,” the researchers concluded.
WSTA chief executive Miles Beale told Drinks Business: “Government runs a surveillance programme for pesticides in commonly consumed foodstuffs. This is a rolling programme and the foodstuffs sampled change on a year-by-year basis. In 2022 the sampling programme included wines. In total 72 wines were sampled only one had residues above the permitted amount.”
Beale added: “The Pesticide Action Network report is sensationalist and potentially damaging to the wine trade. Organic wine does not mean pesticide-free and pesticides can be derived from plants rather than chemicals. What this report does not make clear is that all the wines tested, bar one, were within the legal limits.”
Sales of organic wine are currently strong, with Majestic Wines recently showing a 22% increase in the first five months of the financial year compared to the same period in 2022.
The UK government committed to decrease pesticide use and reassess the UK national action plan for the sustainable use of pesticides (NAP) in its 25-year environment plan, published in January 2018. A consultation was completed and responses published in 2021 but the final NAP is yet to be released. A Defra spokesperson told The Ecologist that it would come “in due course”.
