Effect on Human Health by Residues of Commonly Used Pesticides in Vegetables Cultivation

Abstract

People in Bangladesh are over scared for toxicity of
vegetables & fruits, because the educational level of the farmers
is not up to the mark. Farmers apply pesticides randomly on
agricultural fields without maintaining pre-harvest intervals and
dose. The aim of this work was to study dissipation pattern of
some pesticides in some vegetables kept at room temperature
which represent market condition and to identify and quantify
pesticides applied on some vegetables. By interviewing the
farmers, three commonly used pesticides; cypermethrin,
chlorpyrifos and fenvalerate were sprayed in the farmer’s fields
of the western part of Bangladesh. Samples were extracted by
QuEChERS method, cleaned-up by adsorption chromatography
technique, and analyzed by GC-ECD technique. Recoveries were
found to be between 87-107% with RSD lower than 10% at three
spiking levels. Matrix matched calibration curves were linear for
all the analytes with r2 ≥ 0.99. LODs were found to be 0.01 mg/kg
for cypermethrin and 0.002 mg/kg for both of fenvalerate and
chlorpyrifos. The samples of the same cultivar’s variety were
purchased from the markets of Savar, Mymensingh and Cumilla.
Our finding showed only the presence of cypermethrin in tomato
but the values were below MRL and no pesticide residue was
found in eggplant.