Five monitoring sites selected in the north, south, east, west and central locations of Guangdong province were chosen for the surveillance of chemical contaminants in agricultural commodities, based on the geographical features and ecnomic situation. More than 1 400 samples including rice, wheat flour, meet, eegs, freshmilk, seafoods, fruits and vegetables sold at retail were collected from 2000 to 2002 and analyzed for heavy metals (lead, cadmium, arsenic and mercury), 24 organophosphorus and 8 organochlorine pesticide residues. The results indicated that samples with the levels of lead, cadmium, arsenic and mercury lower than the corresponding tolerance limits in associated foods account for 91 9%,88 1%,100%and 100% of the total, respectively. High levels of lead in preserved eegs and cadmium in seafoods, vegetables and rice were found. Organophosphorus and organochlorine pesticide residues were detected in 10 2% and 18 7% of samples, but 5 6% and 2 1% of sample with their levels higher than the standard limits. Compared with the date obtained from 1992 to 1996 the contamination of organophosphorus pesticide residues in vegetables have a significant decrease in recent years. This suggests that the abuse of hard pesticide onto vegetables has been basically controlled. But not so much decreases in contents of lead and cadmium in rice and vegetables were found in the last decade.