Pesticides Evaluation in Egyptian Fruits and Vegetables: A Safety Assessment Study

Abstract

Background and Objective: Pesticides residues deem a great dilemma for food safety, these residues conjugated with health hazards and several diseases due to its accumulation in the tissues. The present study aimed to evaluate the contamination of residues in five selected horticulture crops. Materials and Methods: Forty five samples including apples, orange, potato, tomato and cucumber (9 samples per each) were purchased from different local markets at Giza Governorate during the spring season of 2017. Pesticides were extracted using QuEChERS technique and the determination was performed using GC-MS apparatus. Results: The results represented a wide contamination of five horticultures with moderate levels of pesticides. Endosulfan and fenpropathrin were significantly higher than permitted MRLs in apples. The pesticides that showed a significant violation to the MRLs values were propamocarb (in orange), profenophos and propargite (in tomato), Delta-hexachlorocyclohexane (δ-HCH), malathion, ortho-phenylphenol and profenophos (in potato). In cucumber, just 4 pesticides were detected in few samples. Moreover, the safety assessment study revealed that there were no risk in all samples except for heptachlor, heptachlor-epoxide and PP-DDT. Conclusion: Fruits and vegetables under investigation represented moderate levels of contamination by pesticide residues particularly for chlorpyriphos in apples, cucumber and tomato (260, 380 and 560 µg kg-1, respectively). Application of integrated pest management programs represents the novel methods to solve the residues dilemma in the agriculture sector.