Barbara Youssef Gorgi
In early March 2025, inspectors from the Border Protection Centre in the Dutch port city of Rotterdam were examining a shipment of oranges from Egypt. When the test results came out, the shipment was found to contain traces of chlorpyrifos – a toxic substance used in the manufacture of pesticides – and it was refused under European Union Regulation 2017/625, which deals with controls on food and animal feed.
Europe has banned the use of chlorpyrifos since 2020, and therefore requires Egypt’s farms which export their produce, and the country’s agricultural quarantine authority to adhere to European standards and to ensure pesticide residues are within the permitted limits, before exporting their produce to Europe.
Chlorpyrifos has also been banned in Egypt since 2021 for use in crops for export. But this did not stop 103 containers of Egyptian food crops and animal feed bound for the European Union (EU), being rejected between February 2022 and March 2025, after chlorpyrifos residues were found, in breach of European food safety standards.
This investigation shows how one particular Egyptian company imported the raw material for chlorpyrifos, and how this pesticide continues to circulate on the agricultural pesticide market, despite being banned. We also track how contaminated shipments have leaked out from Egypt and reached Europe.
Chlorpyrifos is an organophosphate compound used in the manufacture of pesticides. It has been proven to be a health risk because of its toxic effect on the nervous system and its ability to produce genetic changes.
Chlorpyrifos was officially banned in the EU on January 10, 2020, based on recommendation of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). This was because there was found to be no safe levels of exposure.
The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) banned the use of this pesticide in most US food crops in December 2024, because of its neurotoxicity. Its use was banned also in Canada and restricted in Australia, but it is still in use in some developing countries.
In 2020 and 2021, 73 separate notices were issued against Egyptian imports warning that some agricultural crops contained residues of pesticides that were banned, or were above the European safety level. This prompted Spain’s Federation of Farmers’ and Livestock Breeders’ Unions (COAG) to conduct a full investigation in early 2023. The consequent discovery that there was a risk to health prompted the EU to decide to continue imposing a 20 percent additional inspection regime on shipments of Egyptian oranges and peppers.
The COAG report, submitted to the European Commission (EC), recommended increasing inspections to 30 percent, and maintaining them for a full year. It also recommended halting imports from any producer, if more than five percent of their goods in single month had been subject to a warning. In 2023, the EC issued Regulation (EU) 2023/174, raising the additional inspection rates on oranges and peppers to 30 percent. In 2024 the rate dropped again to 20 percent.
This investigation showed that the latest Egyptian shipments to have been barred were destined for the Netherlands. When ARIJ asked why this had happened, the Dutch Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (NVWA) said that the latest batch of Egyptian oranges had arrived in the Netherlands in early March 2025, and samples had been taken for analysis on March 5, 2025. Under Regulation (EU) 2019/1793, all consignments must be checked at the EU’s external borders. After testing at the Border Protection Centre in Rotterdam, residues of chlorpyrifos were found and so the consignment was stopped from entering the Netherlands.
The fact that some Egyptian agricultural consignments continue to be rejected and destroyed at European customs, due to the presence of chlorpyrifos, shows that this substance is still being produced in Egypt, and that networks for its distribution and usage have not been closed down. This prompted us to investigate the production market for pesticides containing chlorpyrifos and how these are traded in Egypt.
In 2021, the Ministry of Agriculture issued Resolution 386 setting up the so-called “coding system,” to address the problem of agricultural exports being rejected internationally and to save the reputation of Egyptian products, according to its official website. The system works by assigning to each farm or exporter a unique QR code that allows crops to be tracked from field to consumer. The codes are linked to databases that hold information on: the name and location of the farm, crops grown, agricultural treatments used, and lab test results. Any breach of conditions leads to cancellation of the facility’s accreditation, re-evaluation, and suspension of activity pending the outcome of investigations.
EU agricultural export regulations
We were doubtful at first that pesticides containing chlorpyrifos would still be in circulation despite it being banned. But, when we contacted a representative of a pesticide manufacturing company about a farmer whose license had been withdrawn by the Egyptian Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation, he assured us the pesticide was still on sale and farmers could easily obtain it.
We also found evidence that the pesticide Top-Phos was still on the market, despite the fact that it contains 48 percent chlorpyrifos.
Up until January 2025, companies specialising in the distribution of pesticides continued to promote chlorpyrifos on their official Facebook accounts for use in controlling pests in food products. A search of the Pesticide Committee’s database, however, showed that it was not registered as a pesticide authorised for use in agricultural products.
On a field trip to Egypt’s Dakahlia Governorate in April 2025, we found that Top-Phos was being used on a citrus farm there.
Ibrahim Ali (not his real name), who works a 20-acre farm, covered his face before spraying trees with this toxic pesticide. He explained to us that he sources these pesticides on the local market and used them to kill fruit flies and aphids, two pests which hinder tree growth.
Top-Phos pesticide in use on a farm
Although his farm is not part of the Ministry of Agriculture’s coding system, Ibrahim says his crops are still being exported: “We deal with the collecting station reps or brokers. During the citrus ripening season in December, they come and inspect the fruit to check on the shape, the size, the softness and whether it’s free of disease. The price depends on that, and this year it’s between eight to ten thousand pounds per ton ($158 to $197).”
Saeed Khalil, a professor of genetic engineering at the Agricultural Research Center, explains that one of the main problems with the coding system is that crops are mixed together at the collection stations. Those from non-coded farms are often added to the coded crops.
According to Khalil, this reason for the mixing together of crops is the higher price commanded by codified crops. Some traders and farmers therefore engage in this manipulation to profit from the price differential. This was confirmed by Ibrahim, who says the produce from his farm is exported. It is also reflected in the data on Egyptian agricultural shipments which are rejected by Europe because they contain chlorpyrifos.
In 2023, two Egyptian researchers conducted a study in the eastern Nile Delta, which revealed residues of 25 different chemicals in vegetable crops. Contamination was found in 88.37 percent of samples, and this exceeded the maximum permitted level in 31.4 percent of cases. 66.23 percent of samples contained more than one type of pesticide. Chlorpyrifos was the most prevalent – at 25.6 percent – despite it being harmful to soil and crops.
Based on the World Health Organization’s classification of toxicity (WHO, 2019), 36 percent of the compounds detected were moderately hazardous (Class II) and 24 percent were slightly hazardous (Class III), according to the same study.
It became clear during another ARIJ field trip, to Minya Governorate, that there are no standards governing the use of pesticides. Farmers there mix compounds together randomly, without checking their toxicity.
Pesticides being used on local farms
When we talked to Youssef Khalil (not his real name), a farmer in Minya Governorate, about the ratio he uses for mixing pesticides, we were surprised to hear that he relies on the estimates of fellow farmers, rather than following any specific instructions. When he asked one of his neighbours what was the right amount to use, the answer he received was far from precise: “one or one and a half kilos of pesticide per thousand litres of water for each acre.”
If that was not bad enough, we ran into a 15-year-old boy who was mixing the chemical and spraying the crops himself, without any supervision or guidance.
A child spraying pesticides on one of the farms
According to Mahmoud Ahmed (not his real name), who owns a citrus farm, lack of any guidance from or supervision by the Ministry of Agriculture or local units means farmers are haphazard in their use of pesticides, both in how they buy them and spray them on crops.
This was born out by an agricultural inspection manager, who declined to be named and who said that the agricultural pesticide market was in chaos, because there was no monitoring or pre-inspection. Pesticides were being used without technical supervision, he said, which meant crops were entering the local market or being exported without any assurance that they were free of harmful pesticide residues.
Once we had found this out, we looked into the accounts of companies producing pesticides containing chlorpyrifos. We found advertisements for 36 products containing chlorpyrifos, indicating that it may still be available and traded on the Egyptian market. Both national and local companies offered these products for sale between January 2023, and March 2025. Some of their advertisements feature guidance saying the pesticide can be used for food products.
But it does not stop there. Commercial databases show that Egypt received at least 18 shipments of raw chlorpyrifos from China in 2023. According to the Agricultural Pesticides Committee’s pesticide database, El Nasr for Intermediate Chemicals, is currently the only company with official approval to import chlorpyrifos.
Since the period during which Egypt was importing the raw material – January 2024, and March 2025 – EU authorities have stopped 26 Egyptian shipments because they contained traces of chlorpyrifos.
The Agricultural Pesticides Committee (APC) has issued several resolutions banning the pesticide. In 2021, it prohibited the use of pesticides containing chlorpyrifos in agricultural products for export. And on March 8, 2022, the committee resolved to ban the use of chlorpyrifos pesticides in food crops, setting a deadline of June 30, 2022. Yet, in the same year, the European authorities stopped 64 shipments of Egyptian crops, while keeping in place the additional inspections on 20 percent of citrus fruit.
Tighter controls on chlorpyrifos use in produce for export
In March 2023, the Central Administration of Plant Quarantine (CAPQ) mandated laboratory testing of shipments of citrus fruit before their export to Europe to ensure they contained no residue of unauthorized pesticides. This applied to companies which had received rejection notices from September 1, 2022 onwards. Nevertheless, in May 2023, the EU decided to increase additional screening to 30 percent of citrus fruits, because of the ongoing presence of chlorpyrifos residues in incoming shipments.
Tighter controls on chlorpyrifos use in produce for export
Contradicting its previous directives restricting the use of pesticides containing chlorpyrifos in non-food crops, the APC put out a booklet in 2023 – “Approved Recommendations for Agricultural Pesticides” – which advocated the use of a number of pesticides, including chlorpyrifos, in cotton crops.
Comparing the 2023 recommendations with those of 2015, it is clear that some pesticides recommended for use in cotton had previously been recommended to be used on vegetables and fruit. It follows that continuing to allow these pesticides on the market means that they could again be used in food crops, not just for cotton.
In May 2024, the committee responsible for registering disinfectants and pesticides at the Egyptian Drug Authority decided to halt the use of chlorpyrifos to control mosquito larvae in crops, while allowing it to still be used domestically or in public health settings. The committee gave companies a deadline of six months to use up their existing stocks.
The Ministry of Agriculture also suspended the licensing of chlorpyrifos and withdrew pesticides containing it from its 2024 listings of recommended products.
But despite the repeated bans issued by the Ministry of Agriculture, the fact that Egyptian exports continue to violate European standards shows that all the official measures are ineffective.
Moreover, the coding system – which is supposed to track crops from the farm to the European market – still covers only 11 export crops, meaning that its effectiveness is limited in ensuring the quality of all agricultural exports.
Amer El-Shorbagy is a member of parliament and assistant head of the Central Secretariat of Agriculture and Farmers of the Mostaqbal Watan party. He argues that this flaw in the system – which causes consignments of produce to be refused by foreign markets and either returned to Egypt or destroyed – is directly impacting the Egyptian economy, causing heavy financial losses and damaging the reputation of Egyptian products in the region and internationally.
Under Ministerial decree № 562 /2019, the CAPQ requires crops destined for the EU to be closely monitored and tested once a month for three months prior to export. These procedures include an initial visual inspection of shipments, followed by laboratory testing for pesticide residues, heavy pollutants, mycotoxins, microbes and viruses. If the consignment passes these tests, it is given a phytosanitary certificate, in accordance with the requirements of the World Trade Organization’s Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS).
Journalists Cyril Rosman and Wissam Hamdy contributed to this investigation, which was supported by ARIJ
