Fruit is the food sector most exposed to pesticides in conventional Italian agriculture. This is stated in the new Legambiente 2025 report, entitled “Stop pesticides on your plate“, which paints a worrying picture of the presence of pesticides in the products we consume every day.
The numbers speak for themselves: 75.57% of the fruit samples analyzed contained multiple pesticide residues at the same time (the so-called multi-residue), while only 22.22% were completely free of pesticides. This data, a slight increase compared to the previous survey, signals the persistence of multiple and close treatments in fruit growing, a practice still widespread in intensive monocultures.
To find out in detail what the Legambiente report discovered you can read our previous article: Too many pesticides on the plate: 48% of food from conventional agriculture is contaminated with pesticides
Today we focus instead on the most contaminated fruits.
The ranking of the most contaminated fruits
In first place we find citrus fruits (mandarins, lemons, oranges, grapefruits) with 72.95% of the samples showing multiple residues at the same time. Citrus fruits are particularly vulnerable due to the frequent application of post-harvest fungicides, substances which tend to concentrate mainly in the peel.
Peaches also rise to the multi-residue podium, with 70.14% of the samples contaminated by multiple residues. An emblematic case cited in the report concerns an Italian peach that had 8 residues at the same time, including Acetamiprid and Methoxyfenozide which had exceeded the Maximum Residue Limit (MRL), therefore resulting irregular.
In third place were pears, with 69.77% of the samples showing traces of multiresidue.
The complete ranking continues with strawberries (56.45%), apples (52.07%), other fruit such as apricots and melon (43.71%), small fruits including cherries and berries (42.86%), grapes (42.11%) and exotic fruit such as pineapple, bananas and kiwis (40.91%).
This is the complete ranking with multi-residue percentage:
The most extreme cases: up to 12 residues in a single sample
Among the samples analyzed, some reached particularly alarming levels of multiple contamination. The record goes to a sample of grapes with 12 different residues, followed by a grapefruit and a peach with 10 residues each, and cherries with 9 residues.
The report reminds us once again that the problem is not just the presence of individual pesticides, but their combined effect. European legislation continues not to consider the cumulative and synergistic effects of multiple chemical substances taken together, focusing only on the maximum limits for each single active ingredient.
In essence, a product can be considered “compliant” even if it contains traces of 5, 8 or even 12 different pesticides, as long as each individual substance does not exceed the permitted limit. But what happens when these substances interact in our body? Science does not yet have definitive answers, and this is a risk we cannot afford to ignore.
The solution exists: organic
Faced with these alarming data, however, there is a concrete and safer alternative. Organic products, as confirmed by the same Legambiente report, present 87.7% of the samples completely free from pesticides. A result that demonstrates that it is possible to produce healthy food without compromising the health of consumers and ecosystems.
The transition towards an agroecological model that makes use of natural techniques such as biocontrol, which promotes the protection of the soil and pollinators, can no longer be postponed. We need concrete incentives for farmers who choose sustainable practices, crop rotations and short and transparent supply chains.
The protection of our health cannot be entrusted only to final checks or individual consumer choices. A change of pace in European and national policies is needed, with measures that truly promote the ecological transition and drastically reduce the consumption of pesticides.
In the meantime, when possible, let’s focus on organic products, especially for the fruit we consume most frequently.
