LONDON (AP) - Britain lags far behind most European Union nations in testing food for pesticides and the safety of some products cannot be guaranteed, an environmental group claimed.

Friends of the Earth said in a report that most of the food consumed in Britain is not checked for pesticide contamination. It said British agencies tested some 732 samples of produce in 1998, compared to 8,000 tests in Italy and more than 6,000 tests in Germany.

The government's Pesticide Safety Directorate, responding to the Friends of the Earth report, said the number of samples tested has risen to 2,300 last year to 4,000 in the current year.

"Pesticides are regularly being found in our food, but because the testing system is so inadequate we don't know the real scale of the problem," said Friends of the Earth spokeswoman Sandra Bell.

"Some of these pesticides have been linked to cancer and other health problems, and children are particularly vulnerable," she said.

Some imported foods are not tested for pesticides, the report said. Bananas have not been tested since 1997 and even then, according to the report, fewer than one in every 100 million was checked.

Food eaten regularly by children, such as bananas, yoghurt and chocolate, is rarely monitored, the group claimed. Children are especially vulnerable to the effects of pesticide in food, it said.

The Pesticide Safety Directorate said comparisons with testing by other EU states could be misleading.

"It is true that the U.K. (United Kingdom) does analyze fewer samples than some countries in the EU, but it looks for more pesticides and often undertakes more individual tests," said a spokeswoman, who declined to be named in keeping with official practice.

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