The North American Chemical Residue Workshop (NACRW), formerly the Florida Pesticide Residue Workshop, was held in St. Pete’s Beach, Florida. For the 52nd year, professionals met to discuss the latest trends in analysis of pesticides, veterinary drug and other chemical residues. Matrices of interest included food, animal feed and environmental samples, and everyone came to learn and share the latest in residue analysis.
This year, the big topic was the pending testing regulations for pesticides in cannabis. The United States now has 33 states that have legalized either medical marijuana or recreational marijuana, and many of these states are moving towards the adoption of these new regulations. Along with this increasing availability of cannabis products comes the need for regulation and assurance of safety from pesticides residues. Some states are modeling the regulations closely to tobacco standards, while other states have chosen alternative paths towards formulating their regulations.
Glyphosate has been in the news lately because glyphosate residue is showing up in finished food products. In addition, European testing has found glyphosate in drinking water and the urine of many citizens. Consider that the World Health Organization (WHO) recently decided to classify glyphosate as a probable carcinogen and the increasing interest in glyphosate testing becomes even more understandable.
At the NACRW conference, there was considerable interest in Pickering Labs’ method for glyphosate analysis because it is robust, established and economical. Our poster actually generated so much interest that we needed to reprint more application handouts at the hotel copy room! That’s a nice marketing emergency to have!