MONITORING AND RISK EXPOSURE STUDIES OF SOME PESTICIDE RESIDUES DETECTED IN EGYPTIAN FRUIT AND VEGETABLES

A monitoring study of pesticide residues was carried out in Egypt 2010.A 225 samples of different types of fruits and vegetables collected from nine Egyptian local markets located in nine governorates. All samples were examined for residues of 80 pesticides. Overall, results showed that 57.3% of the samples had no detectable pesticide residues, however, 39.1% contained detectable residues without violation, of which 3.6% contained residues that exceeded maximum residue limits (MRLs). Watermelon, banana, mango, cauliflower and potatoes samples were free from pesticide residues. The vegetables samples recorded the highest contamination percentage without exceeding of the levels of MRL’ (i.e. 53.2%), followed by fruits (i.e.50.7%), and the leafy vegetables had the lowest percentage (i.e. 29.8%). In contrary, data showed that the leafy vegetables recorded the highest violation % (i.e. 8.5%), followed by fruits (i.e. 2.9%), and vegetables (i.e. 0.01%). The violated samples were apricot, grape, green peas, lettuce, molokhia and watercress. The violated compounds were cypermethrin and dithiocarbamates. The highest frequently detected pesticide was dithiocarbamates, followed by chloropyrifos, lambada-cyhalothrin, profenofos, ethion cypermethrin, fenopropathrin, malathion, chloropyrifos-methyl, dimethoate, diniconazol, dicofol and bromopropylate. However, the lowest frequently detected pesticides, which detected only one time, were phenothoate, malaoxon, imazalil, penconazole, permethrin, chlorfenapyr, iprodione, diazinon and procymidone. The dietary exposures of the most frequently detected pesticides were theoretically calculated to evaluate the risk for Egyptian consumer. As shown by the results, the intake of pesticide residues does not exceed the ADI (Acceptable Daily Intake) in any case. It is found to be below 15% of the ADI for all pesticides. The estimated exposure ranges from 0.00025% of the ADI for malathion on each of molokhia and spinach to 14.6% of the ADI for the ethion on tomato.