Contamination of vegetables of different seasons with organophosphorous pesticides and related health risk assessment in northern India Mayank Bhanti * , Ajay Taneja School of Chemical Sciences, Department of Chemistry, St. John’s College, Agra, UP 282002, India Received 23 June 2006; received in revised form 25 April 2007; accepted 25 April 2007 Available online 12 June 2007 Abstract India is an agrarian country. The use of pesticides, herbicides and fungicides were introduced in India during the mid-sixties, which are now being used on a large scale and is a common feature of Indian agriculture. The main intention of the introduction of pesticides was to prevent and control insects, pests and diseases in the field crops. Initially the use of pesticides reduced pest attack and paved way for increasing the crop yield as expected. Simultaneously, increased use of chemical pesticides has resulted in contamination of environ- ment and also caused many long-term affect on the society. In the present study an effort has been made to evaluate the residual con- centration of selected organophosphorous pesticides (methyl parathion, chlorpyriphos and malathion) in vegetables grown in different seasons (summer, rainy and winter). Data obtained was then used for estimating the potential health risk associated with the exposure to these pesticides. The pesticides residue concentrations in vegetables of different season shows that the winter vegetables are the most con- taminated followed by summer and rainy vegetables. The concentration of the various pesticides were well below the established toler- ances but continuous consumption of such vegetables even with moderate contamination level can accumulate in the receptor’s body and may prove fatal for human population in the long term. The analysis of health risk estimates indicated that chlorpyriphos and malathion did not poses a direct hazard, however, exposure to methyl parathion has been found to pose some risk to human health. Ó 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Residual concentration; Health risk; Acceptable daily intakes (ADI) and maximum residue limits 1. Introduction Pesticides are indispensable to the farmer in his fight against plant pests and diseases. Today, it is estimated that as much as 45% of the world’s crop is destroyed by plant pests and diseases. Thus in order to meet the demand of the world, it is essential to use the pesticides to protect the crops, both during growth and their subsequent storage and transport. But the indiscriminate and injudicious use of pesticides have resulted in to widespread contamination in food and feed commodities (Agnihotri, 1999). The majority of the pesticide poisonings and deaths occur in the developing countries, although far greater quantities of pesticides are used in the developed countries. This is due to the poor pesticide handling practices and use of more toxic pesticides by farmers of developing countries (like India). Farmers have enough understanding of ‘acute pesticide poisoning’ but lack awareness of the ‘long-term chronic’ risk of pesticide usage (Bhanti et al., 2004). The dangers of the acute pesticides poisoning are well known to Indian farmers, but the need is to highlight the chronic exposure which can cause many neurological dis- eases. The affect of the acute poisoning are well established and the farmers know all the preventive measures which are to be taken against the acute exposure. The current need is to address the awareness for the long-term moderate 0045-6535/$ - see front matter Ó 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.chemosphere.2007.04.071 * Corresponding author. Tel.: +91 562 2801883. E-mail address: mayankbhanti16@gmail.com (M. Bhanti). www.elsevier.com/locate/chemosphere Chemosphere 69 (2007) 63–68