Development of an Ecofriendly Method to Monitor and to Reduce Pesticide Residues in Indian Fruits and Vegetables

Abstract

Quality regulations and food safety standards are becoming more stringent in most of the countries to protect consumers from contaminants. Therefore modem trends in analytical chemistry are geared towards automation, simplification, miniaturization and speeding up of sample preparation, reduced usage of organic solvents and selective and sensitive detection of pesticides. For a country like India, this is especially important since it is a major consumer and exporter of agricultural produce. Produce, which is often grown in fields where the application of pesticides is indiscriminate; thus necessitating the need for better techniques of detection and reduction of pesticides. newlineKeeping this in mind, in the present study, three novel and rapid methods were developed, optimized and validated (as per ISO/IEC: 17025:2005, ICH and SANCO guidelines) for extraction, purification, separation and detection of hundreds of pesticides in fruits and vegetables. This reduced the number of steps and time required for analysis, increased sample throughput and improved the quality and sensitivity of analytical methods. Additionally, these methods were able to meet the stringent maximum residual limits (MRL) specified in different national and international guidelines for both import and export of fruits and vegetables. newline