Dealey Pest Academy Blog

So, what on earth IS happening to phosphine fumigation PART 2 In the last part of this series I went through the fundamental change to phosphine registration- one treatment "per batch." This was due to concerns of pesticide residue in food which is a fair shout. The manufacturers of metal phosphides have had some independent testing done and the results are currently being ratified by BAuA in Germany. We await their conclusions with baited breath! So, what about the other changes? 2. The Workplace Exposure Limit for phosphine gas has been reduced to 0.01ppm. That means that any level above 0.01 parts of phosphine in one million parts of air is now considered toxic. This is basically as close to zero as we can get. It used to be 0.1ppm, what has changed? Why has this gone down by a factor of ten? The funny thing is, when it first came out, we all just thought this was a typo! Sadly, it turns out we were wrong. It's all to do with the lat...

  So what on earth IS happening to phosphine fumigation?    The times they are a'changing. Phosphine fumigation restrictions are in full force. I would like to spend a few choice paragraphs giving you the updates, the 'whys and the hows' of food fumigation There have been some massive changes in pest control recently and fumigation hasn’t been immune. The changes to our sector have been fundamental and it puts ever more emphasis on your fumigators really knowing their onions. Phosphine is a toxic gas used regularly in food production to fumigate raw food ingredients such as cereals, beans, nuts and oilseeds. This not only safely lengthens the time that these products can be stored for but also kills off any insect infestations that might have been picked up during storage. Phosphine can be used in any stage of manufacture- on farm, at the storage facility, during transport, at the food factory, in the distribution warehouse...