SOMERSET'S fruit farms have been given a clean bill of health by county scientists checking for excess use of chemicals.
Officers posing as customers collected samples of eight different fruits, including strawberries and raspberries. Somerset Scientific Services -- based in the council's community protection department -- carried out a range of tests on the fruit, in-cluding checks for commonly used fungicides and pesticides.
No pesticides were detected in any of the samples, and while fungicides were found in eight samples they were within the maximum permitted limits.
A follow-up investigation was undertaken at one fruit farm because levels of the fungicide chlor-pyriphos were found in two samples of raspberries at levels close to the maximum, but after spraying records were examined no cause for the relatively high levels could be established.
George Stephenson, county community protection officer, was satisfied with the outcome of the survey.
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