Pesticides: EFSA presents new guidance to measure soil degradation rates

EFSA has published new guidance that enables scientists to carry out a specialised aspect of environmental exposure assessment One of the key steps in risk assessment, this relates to a thorough evaluation of who, or what, has been exposed to a hazard and a quantification of the amounts involved. for pesticides. The guidance document provides a clear methodology for evaluating studies that measure the time required for the actual degradation of 50 % of a chemical pesticide Substance used to kill or control pests, including disease-carrying organisms and undesirable insects, animals and plants. and its transformation products in soil. This is known as the DegT50 value. Importantly, it allows users to exclude the effects of dissipation, another process that causes pesticide residues to disappear from soil.