Microbiological Pollution Levels of Some Vegetable Specimens Taken From Public Markets of Three Central Towns of Konya-Turkey

Abstract

Konya Province has the largest agricultural lands among the other provinces in Turkey and thus it has been named ``food store of Anatolia{''} as far as agricultural production is concerned. However, the climate around Konya Province is semi-arid and thus irrigation of the agricultural lands is not usually adequate. In other words, many towns around Konya have to draw waters, for irrigation, from lower quality sources including municipal wastewaters. With the application to land of large volumes of minimally pretreated wastewater, it is evident that considerable potential for adverse health effects exists. Microbiological pollution could occur from food crop contamination, pathogen-laden aerosols {[}2], ground water pollution or surface water pollution. A case study was carried out with the principal objective to investigate entrobacteria as an indicator of microbiological pollution in vegetables collected from public markets of three central towns in the province of Konya. The work was conducted upon 20 specimens representing 10 different varieties of vegetable samples taken from the main public markets of Konya city. The results were summarized as follows: (1) The distribution of total coliform bacteria on the vegetable specimens ranged from 12 to 50%. (2) The highest incidence of coliform bacterial pollution was found with parsley (approx. 100%) and it was followed by watercress, lettuce, radishes, green onions, carrots, cabbage, cucumber skin, tomatoes and green pepper (33-39%) specimens, respectively. (3) Among the markets from which the vegetable samples were collected, the highest incidence of the microbiological pollution in terms of the coliform distributions was detected with the Evil market and it was followed by the Beysehir and Doganhisar markets respectively. (4) The incidences of the pathogenic bacterial pollution found with the vegetable specimens were generally very low when compared to coliform bacterial distribution detected from the specimens, and the genera of the pathogenic bacteria isolated from the vegetables were as follows: Proteus sp., Salmonella sp. and Shigella sp. (5) The findings indicated that the presence of fecal pollution of the vegetables which were supposed to be eaten fresh in the region. (6) The ``scalding{''} was found to be the most effective method to disinfect the vegetables studied among the four treatments tested then it was followed by the treatments of ``washing with a bactericide{''} and ``washing with a detergent{''} respectively {[}1-9].