Evaluating the presence of pesticide residues and associated health risks in US peanuts

The presence and concentration of pesticide residues in the U.S. peanut crop were assessed for crop years 2020-2022. Samples were randomly selected from various buying points during the grading process. Peanuts from the three major growing regions were selected to attain a representative cross-section of U.S. peanut production and sent to an independent laboratory and tested for an extensive array of pesticide residues. Only 14 residues were detected. The objectives of this analysis are two-fold. First, because the high degree of censoring in the test results can lead to misleading descriptive statistics, we instead provide confidence intervals for the probability that another sample chosen at random would test positive for pesticide residue. Second, using internationally accepted safety standards, we estimate short-term and long-term health exposure risk assessments for consumers of peanuts. Overall, the probabilities of detection were found to be low for most pesticides and consumers were found to face minimal health exposure risks given the level of residue concentrations that were detected.