In early March 2025, the Border Control Post in the Port of Rotterdam, Netherlands, rejected a shipment of oranges arriving from Egypt after laboratory analyses revealed residues of the toxic substance chlorpyrifos—banned in the European Union since 2020 under Article 66 of EU Regulation 2017/625 concerning the control of food and feed.
Although Egypt officially committed to banning the use of chlorpyrifos in export crops since 2021, European records document the rejection of 103 Egyptian containers between February 2022 and March 2025, all carrying food or feed products found in violation of safety standards due to residues of the banned pesticide.
This investigation reveals that a single Egyptian company continues to import the raw material for chlorpyrifos, and that the substance is still circulating in the agricultural pesticide market. This raises serious questions about the effectiveness of local regulatory oversight and how such non-compliant shipments continue to reach European borders.
Chlorpyrifos is classified as an organophosphate insecticide known for its neurotoxicity and ability to cause genetic mutations. Due to its severe health and environmental hazards, the European Union officially banned its use on 10 January 2020, following an assessment by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), which concluded that no level of exposure to the substance could be considered safe. A similar decision followed in the United States, where the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in December 2024 prohibited its use on most food crops. It has also been banned or restricted in Canada and Australia, but continues to be used in several developing countries, including Egypt.
In just 2020 and 2021, Europe issued 73 alerts against Egyptian agricultural shipments due to residues of banned pesticides, chiefly chlorpyrifos. This prompted the Union of Farmers and Cattle Breeders in Spain to demand stricter controls. In early 2023, it recommended increasing the rate of additional inspections to 30% on Egyptian orange and pepper exports, extending monitoring for a full year, and automatically suspending any product if alerts exceeded 5% monthly. The European Commission followed suit by issuing Decision No. 174 of 2023, which raised inspection rates to 30%, later reduced to 20% in 2024.
In the course of our investigation, we obtained documents confirming that an Egyptian orange shipment was rejected in March 2025 en route to the Netherlands. The Netherlands Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (NVWA) confirmed in exclusive statements that tests were conducted on 5 March at the Border Control Post in Rotterdam and detected chlorpyrifos residues, leading to the shipment’s rejection in accordance with EU Implementing Regulation 2019/1793, which mandates testing for all agricultural shipments from high-risk countries.
The repeated rejection of Egyptian shipments in recent years points to a structural flaw in the agricultural inspection system—especially given that the pesticide has been officially banned in export crops since 2021. The continued detection of chlorpyrifos at European borders suggests that its production within Egypt has not ceased and that its local circulation persists. This prompted the investigation team to trace the production map of chlorpyrifos-containing insecticides in the Egyptian market and examine how these substances make their way into export supply chains.
In response to growing international warnings, Egypt’s Ministry of Agriculture issued Decree No. 386 of 2021, introducing the “coding system”—a system that assigns a unique QR code to each farm or exporter, enabling the tracking of produce from cultivation to the consumer. These codes are linked to detailed data, including the farm’s location, crop type, treatment methods, and laboratory results. Any violation of these conditions leads to the temporary suspension of the farm’s certification and halts transactions until investigations are complete.
However, despite the activation of this system, contaminated shipments continue to reach foreign markets, raising concerns about its implementation and opening the door to deeper inquiries into the networks of production, distribution, and accountability within Egypt’s domestic market.
Tracking Chlorpyrifos Use in Farms
Despite official decrees banning chlorpyrifos in Egypt since 2021, field evidence points to its continued circulation within the agricultural market. In early 2025, the investigative team contacted a representative from one of the pesticide manufacturing companies regarding a product whose registration had been revoked by the Egyptian Ministry of Agriculture. He confirmed that the pesticide was still available in local markets and could be easily acquired by farmers without any oversight.
This account was not isolated. Our review of the Pesticides Committee’s database revealed that a product named Top Phos—which contains 48% chlorpyrifos—is not registered as an approved agricultural pesticide. Nevertheless, pesticide distribution companies continued to promote this product on their official Facebook pages up to January 2025, marketing it as an effective solution against pests like the fruit fly and aphids.
During a field visit to Dakahlia Governorate in April 2025, the investigative team observed the use of Top Phos on a citrus farm spanning 20 feddans. There, we met Ibrahim Ali (a pseudonym), a farmworker spraying the trees with the pesticide while covering his face with a scarf. Ibrahim explained that the pesticide is purchased from the local market without any conditions and is used regularly to combat insect pests that hinder tree growth.
This scene reveals that the declared ban has not successfully regulated the market, and that the toxic substance continues to be used in agricultural production chains. It raises broader questions about the effectiveness of oversight on production plants, distribution points, and the safety of agricultural products destined for both export and local consumption.
Although his farm is not registered under the Ministry of Agriculture’s coding system, Ibrahim confirmed that his crops still find their way to export markets. He stated: “We work with agents or brokers connected to packing stations. During the citrus harvest season in December, they come to inspect the fruit for appearance, size, smoothness, and absence of disease. Based on that, they set the price. This year, prices range from 8,000 to 10,000 pounds ($158 to $197) per ton.”
Professor Said Khalil, a genetic engineering specialist at the Agricultural Research Center, explains that one of the primary flaws in the coding system lies in the mixing of crops at packing stations. In many cases, produce from non-coded farms is added to coded shipments.
According to Khalil, this mixing stems from the higher market value of coded produce, prompting some traders and farmers to manipulate the system to profit from the price difference. This was echoed by the farmer “Ibrahim,” who claims his farm’s produce is exported, and is further reflected in the data on Egyptian agricultural shipments rejected by Europe due to chlorpyrifos contamination.
The use of chlorpyrifos—classified by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a moderately hazardous pesticide—was not limited to large-scale farms. It has also spread to smallholder farms.
In 2023, two Egyptian researchers conducted a study on vegetable crops in the eastern Nile Delta, which revealed the presence of residues from 25 different chemical substances. The findings showed that 88.37% of the samples were contaminated, 31.4% exceeded maximum residue limits, and 66.23% contained more than one type of pesticide. Chlorpyrifos was the most prevalent, found in 25.6% of the samples, despite its harmful effects on soil and crops.
According to the WHO toxicity classification (WHO, 2019), 36% of the detected compounds were categorized as moderately hazardous (Category II), while 24% were considered slightly hazardous (Category III), according to the same study. During another field visit in Minya Governorate, it became apparent that no safety standards governed pesticide use: farmers were observed randomly mixing chemical substances without checking for toxicity.
When we spoke with Youssef Khalil (a pseudonym), a farmer in Minya Governorate, about pesticide mixing ratios, we were surprised to find that he relies on the estimations of fellow farmers rather than following any precise guidelines. When he asked one of his neighbors about the appropriate dosage, he received an imprecise response: “One kilo or one and a half kilos of pesticide per 1,000 liters of water per feddan.”
The issue didn’t stop there. We encountered a 15-year-old boy responsible for preparing chemical mixtures and spraying crops himself—entirely unsupervised and without any technical guidance.
The absence of oversight from the Ministry of Agriculture and local administrative units, as described by Mahmoud Ahmed (a pseudonym), a citrus farm owner, has led farmers to resort to random practices—whether in purchasing pesticides or spraying them—without effective ministry supervision.
In the same context, an agricultural inspection director, who requested anonymity, stated that the pesticide market is in a state of disorder due to the lack of oversight and pre-market evaluation. Pesticides are used without technical supervision, which leads to crops being sold in local markets or exported abroad without ensuring they are free from harmful pesticide residues.
Based on this information, we conducted a review of the social media accounts of companies producing pesticides that contain chlorpyrifos. We identified 36 products advertised with chlorpyrifos content, suggesting that the substance remains available and in circulation within the Egyptian market. National and local companies promoted some of these products between January 2023 and March 2025. Several of the advertisements included guidance indicating that the pesticide could be used on food crops.
The issue extends beyond domestic use. Commercial databases reveal that Egypt imported at least 18 shipments of raw chlorpyrifos from China during 2023. According to the pesticide database maintained by the Agricultural Pesticide Committee, the state-owned company Al-Nasr for Intermediate Chemicals is currently the only entity holding an official license to import this substance.
Since the importation of raw chlorpyrifos between January 2024 and March 2025, 26 Egyptian shipments have been halted by European Union authorities due to the presence of chlorpyrifos residues.
“Measures” to Ban Chlorpyrifos Pesticides
Despite a series of successive decrees banning the use of chlorpyrifos, Egyptian agricultural shipments continued to be rejected at European borders due to the presence of residues of this prohibited substance. In 2021, the Agricultural Pesticide Committee decided to ban the use of pesticides containing chlorpyrifos in products intended for export. On 8 March 2022, this ban was expanded to cover all food crops within Egypt, with a final grace period for circulation set to expire on 30 June of the same year.
Yet, this ban did not yield tangible results. In 2022 alone, European authorities rejected 64 agricultural shipments from Egypt, prompting the European Union to maintain an additional inspection rate of 20%, particularly for citrus shipments.
In an attempt to prevent further rejections, the Central Administration for Agricultural Quarantine introduced a new measure in March 2023, requiring mandatory laboratory testing for citrus shipments exported to Europe—on the condition that the company in question had previously received a rejection notice for its shipments since September 2022.
Despite these actions, violations persisted. In May 2023, the European Commission decided to raise the additional inspection rate again to 30% after the continued detection of chlorpyrifos residues in Egyptian shipments. This raised doubts about the effectiveness of local monitoring mechanisms and the extent to which producers and exporters complied with the ban.
Although the Egyptian government announced a ban on the use of chlorpyrifos in agriculture, the 2023 “Official Recommendations for Agricultural Pesticides” booklet published by the Pesticide Committee revealed a striking contradiction. It included recommendations for using several pesticides containing the banned substance in cotton cultivation. When compared to the 2015 edition of the booklet, it was found that some pesticides currently designated for cotton had previously been used on vegetables and fruits. This opens the door for their indirect reuse on food crops and shows that these pesticides remain licensed and available in the market.
In May 2024, the Pesticide and Disinfectant Registration Committee at the Egyptian Drug Authority decided to halt the use of chlorpyrifos in combating agricultural mosquito larvae, due to its continued leakage into crops. However, the committee allowed its use to continue as a household insecticide and granted companies a six-month period to sell off remaining stock. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Agriculture removed all references to the substance from the 2024 pesticide recommendations booklet and officially revoked its license.
Nevertheless, this series of decisions failed to achieve any concrete impact, as the European Union continued to report violations involving Egyptian agricultural shipments containing residues of the banned substance. This raises questions about the practical implementation of the bans.
The coding system launched by the Ministry of Agriculture to monitor the quality of agricultural exports remains limited in scope, covering only 11 crops, which restricts its effectiveness in regulating the quality of other crops and leaves loopholes through which banned pesticides can enter the supply chain.
MP Amer El-Shorbagi, a member of the House of Representatives and Deputy Secretary of the Agriculture and Farmers Secretariat of the Future of the Nation Party, warns that the continuation of these violations directly harms Egypt’s agricultural reputation and exposes the economy to significant losses due to rejected or destroyed shipments in foreign markets.
According to Ministerial Decree No. 562 of 2019, the Agricultural Quarantine Authority is obligated to carry out periodic inspections for each shipment destined for the European Union. These inspections include an initial visual examination, followed by laboratory tests to detect pesticide residues, heavy metals, mycotoxins, and microbial and viral components, before issuing the phytosanitary certificate in accordance with the Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS) Agreement of the World Trade Organization.
This investigation was contributed to by journalists Cyril Rothmann and Wissam Hamdi.
The investigation was produced with the support of ARIJ.
