EUPT-C6 Announcement

The EU Reference Laboratory for pesticide residues in Cereals and Feeding stuff (EURL-CF) announce the European Proficiency Test on cereals for pesticides requiring multi residue methods (MRMs)

The Test Material will be barley with incurred and spiked pesticides. You will receive approximately 100 g of a treated and approximately 100 g of a blank test material.

The pesticides included in this EUPT are listed in the Target Pesticides List.

The PT evaluation will treat each compound individually. Additionally, a summed evaluation/ranking of the overall lab performance is envisaged.

According to the EUPT-6 Calendar the expected sample shipment will be on 30 January 2012 and the deadline for result submission on 26 February 2012. If any laboratories have holidays during this period, please inform us so that we can rearrange shipment.

The aim of the test is to provide laboratories with an assessment, both of their analytical performance and the reliability of their data - in comparison to other laboratories. This will hopefully result in positive changes and quality improvements at each of the laboratories.

The "Registration Website" will open from 15. December 2011 till 15. January 2012. More information will be published on this website.

Participation is mandatory for:

1. All National Reference Laboratories for pesticides in cereals and feeding stuff (NRL-CFs)
2. All Official Laboratories (OfLs) undertaking pesticide residue analyses within the frame of National and EU official controls, as long as their analytical scope (commodity/pesticide-combinations) fully or partly overlaps with the scope of this EUPT (see Art. 28 of EC Reg. 396/2005).

A list of the labs that, according to the information stored in our Lab-Network Database, are obliged to participate at the EUPT-C6 will be distributed via e-mail to all potential participants. The recipients of this list will be responsible to check whether their lab's contact data is correct. The NRLs will be responsible to check whether the list contains all laboratories officially analyzing pesticide residues in cereals and feeding stuff in their country and report any errors to Hubert.Zipper@cvuas.bwl.de.

If participation in this EUPT is not possible, DG-SANCO expects from all laboratories listed in this list to give an explanation. This explanation can be given in the Registration Website (accessible from 15 December 2011 to 15 January, 2012). All labs should thus access the Registration Website.

This EUPT is furthermore open for all national reference laboratories (NRLs) and official laboratories (OfLs) in the EU-candidate states and the EFTA countries.

The PT is also open for Official laboratories in third countries (countries outside EU) as long as test material is available and provided that DG-SANCO gives its consent.

For participating laboratories from the EU, EU-candidate states and EFTA states the participation fee will be: 175 €

The participation fees for laboratories from third countries: 350 €

Published 28-10-2011, 16:09:10