{"id":11548,"date":"2026-05-08T10:24:32","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T08:24:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.manica.com\/?p=11548"},"modified":"2026-05-08T11:03:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T09:03:07","slug":"new-copper-mrls-reg-eu-2026-840-the-conclusion-of-a-long-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.manica.com\/en\/new-copper-mrls-reg-eu-2026-840-the-conclusion-of-a-long-story\/","title":{"rendered":"New copper MRLs (Reg. EU 2026\/840): the conclusion of a long story"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>With the adoption of Commission <a href=\"https:\/\/eur-lex.europa.eu\/legal-content\/EN\/ALL\/?uri=CELEX%3A32026R0840\">Regulation (EU) 2026\/840<\/a>, the European Union finally settles a matter that has been ongoing for more than a decade and affected one of the key tools in plant protection: <strong>copper<\/strong>. For agriculture the outcome is very positive, as it establishes higher maximum residue levels for several crops and gives a <strong>signal of renewed confidence<\/strong> in the responsible use of this element.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>A story that goes back a long way<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Starting in <strong>2013<\/strong>, the European Union began a process of reviewing the maximum residue levels of copper in food matrices (MRLs). The reason is well known: copper is used in agriculture for crop protection and nutrition, but,above all, copper is <strong>a natural element and an essential micronutrient<\/strong>, ubiquitous in the environment and in foods, independently of agricultural treatments.<\/p>\n<p>This dual nature has always made its regulatory assessment complex, because Reg. (EC) 1107\/2009 and related guidelines are thought for synthetic chemicals. A critical moment came in <strong>2018<\/strong>, when a review by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) highlighted a potential theoretical exceedance of safety thresholds for long\u2011term consumer exposure. However, the analysis also <strong>highlights a paradox<\/strong>: <strong>the majority of dietary copper intake<\/strong> <strong>originates from copper naturally present in food (background or endogenous copper)<\/strong> rather than from agriculture\u2019s source.<\/p>\n<p>Recognising the paradox and the need for an ad-hoc approach for micronutrients, the European Commission decided to launch an appropriate in\u2011depth scientific review, as it happened for the environmental risk back in 2019 (when the Commission asked EFSA to revise the environmental risk assessment models for transitional metals)<\/p>\n<h3><strong>The scientific breakthrough and the new approach<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Between <strong>2023 and 2025<\/strong>, EFSA\u2019s assessments led to a substantial revision of previous outcomes and of the earlier regulatory approach. It was established that:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>copper levels are kept constant in human bodies by homeostatic mechanisms.<\/li>\n<li>there is no health concern for adult or child consumers;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>the contribution of agricultural use of copper products to dietary intake is negligible compared with the naturally occurring (endogenous) copper content.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>At the end, it became clear that the issue was not the agronomic use of copper, but rather the method used to assess the risk according to Reg.1107.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><strong>Regulation (EU) 2026\/840: what\u2019s new<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>The most important aspect for calculating MRLs is the concept of <strong>\u2018total copper\u2019<\/strong>, meaning that copper derived from agricultural use and copper naturally present in the food constitute a single, inseparable entity.<\/p>\n<p>The case of <strong>wine and table grapes<\/strong> is emblematic: the limit is doubled (from 50 mg\/kg to 100 mg\/kg), safeguarding a strategic sector for European agriculture. MRLs have also been increased for <strong>tomatoes, apples, pears, cherries, strawberries, peaches, and potatoes<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>This outcome can be read as a return <strong>to common sense<\/strong>: copper remains a tool to be used with, responsibly, but it is no longer unfairly questioned. Its natural ubiquity in the environment and its role as a micronutrient \u00a0are now acknowledged.<\/p>\n<p>For those who work in the agricultural sectorevery day, the message is clear: copper can continue <strong>to play a stable and key role<\/strong> within modern, sustainable and responsible agriculture.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With the adoption of Commission Regulation (EU) 2026\/840, the European Union finally settles a matter that has been ongoing for more than a decade and affected one of the key tools in plant protection: copper. For agriculture the outcome is very positive, as it establishes higher maximum residue levels for several crops and gives a&#8230; <a class=\"view-article\" href=\"https:\/\/www.manica.com\/en\/new-copper-mrls-reg-eu-2026-840-the-conclusion-of-a-long-story\/\">View Article<\/a>","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":11556,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[140],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-corporate-communication"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manica.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manica.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manica.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manica.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manica.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11548"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.manica.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11548\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11551,"href":"https:\/\/www.manica.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11548\/revisions\/11551"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manica.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.manica.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manica.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.manica.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}