More than one in every 10 fertiliser samples tested by the Department of Agriculture recorded results which laid outside of the tolerance set down for the product.

The 11% out-of-tolerance rate is unchanged on the levels found in 2022’s testing, when the proportion of fertiliser samples showing as being non-compliant roughly doubled on the medium-term average found in Department tests.

Some 192 fertiliser samples were tested last year by passing them through 569 analyses and approximately 11% were out of tolerance.

The equivalent out-of-tolerance figures reported for 2021 and the two years previous were 4.9%, 5.8% and 3.9% respectively.

There were 90 lime samples tested and around 8% of them were found to be out of the tolerance allowed by the Department.

Manufacturers are informed of any out-of-tolerance results found.

Food testing

Almost three-quarters of food items found to be non-compliant with pesticide residue limits last year were of non-Irish origin.

Some 1,258 food items were tested for residues under the national pesticide residues control programme and the legal limit was exceeded in 2.9% of these samples.

Any samples which breached and which were of domestic origin were followed up with investigations and further investigations were initiated into five findings of unauthorised pesticide use in commodities of Irish origin.

Another 524 samples were tested as part of import enforcement in 2023 and around one in every 13 of these samples turned up as being non-compliant with maximum permissible residue levels.

A total of 55 plant protection products were tested for compliance with their authorised specification, of which two failed.

The Department carried out over 2,000 audits of fruit and vegetable retailers and wholesalers for compliance with produce origin labelling rules.

Admin

Some 37,586 invoices were received by the Department for goods or services delivered to it and only 103 of these bills went beyond 30 days unpaid.

These 103 late payments, worth €715,084, incurred interest of €7,541, which was paid by the Department.

The number of complaints received by the Department’s customer service unit increased by four-fifths up to 146 in 2023.