WHO and FAO

The Joint Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) / World Health Organization (WHO) Meeting on Pesticide Residues (JMPR) is responsible for evaluating the safety of pesticides and estimating safety reference values (i.e. Acceptable Daily Intake (ADI)) for individual pesticides.

Governments and international risk managers, such as the Codex Alimentarius Commission (the intergovernmental body that sets food standards), use these acceptable daily intakes to establish maximum residue limits (MRLs) for pesticides in food. Codex standards are the reference for international food trade, meaning that consumers everywhere can be confident that the food they buy meets the agreed standards for safety and quality, no matter where it has been produced. Currently, there are Codex standards for more than 100 different pesticides.