The poison is on the table: an analysis of the pesticides present in the food of Brazilians

Ana Carolina Araújo Silva,Danúbia Domingos Epifânio,Farah Maria Drumond Chequer,Mariana Linhares Pereira

doi:10.33448/rsd-v10i12.20085

Ana Carolina Araújo Silva, Danúbia Domingos Epifânio + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.33448/rsd-v10i12.20085

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Abstract

Brazil is the world's largest consumer of pesticides. To monitor the quality of food sold in the country, the Program for Analysis of Pesticide Residues in Food (Programa de Análise de Resíduos de Agrotóxicos em Alimentos - PARA) was created, responsible for carrying out analyzes of these foods and providing annual reports. The objective of this study was to carry out a survey of the information contained in these reports on the residues of pesticides found on unsatisfactory samples (unauthorized pesticides and/or above the permitted limit). This is a descriptive documentary study, based on the reports available (2001 to 2018). Information was collected on the pesticides that most appeared among the samples considered unsatisfactory and their possible damage to human health. Strawberries, bell peppers, and cucumbers presented the largest numbers of samples unsatisfactory, mostly because of the presence of pesticides unauthorized. The pesticides that have been repeated the most irregularly were chlorpyrifos, carbendazim, acefate and metamidophos, the latter has been banned since 2011 in Brazil. Evidence show that such pesticides are toxic to the human organism. Measures are needed to better control and inspect food and pesticides sold in Brazil, also raise awareness among the population and rural producers.

Highlights

To increase production yield, pesticides are widely used with the aim of keeping crops healthy and preventing destruction by infestations/diseases (Nougadère, 2020)
During the years 2001 to 2018, ANVISA issued eight reports with the results found by PARA, the first report referring to the years 2001 to 2007, the second for 2008, the third from 2009, the fourth for 2010, the fifth from 2011 to 2012, this l atter received a complementary report with the results of the analysis of six more crops
As for bell peppers and cucumbers, a similar result was found by Jallow and collaborators (2017), who investigated the presence of pesticide residues in fruits and vegetables of common consumption in Kuwait, and demonstrated that tomato (88%), bell pepper (83%) and cucumber (87%) presented the largest number of samples contaminated with pesticide residues

Summary

Introduction

Pesticides are widely used with the aim of keeping crops healthy and preventing destruction by infestations/diseases (Nougadère, 2020). The study by Chiu et al (2018), in which women who underwent infertility treatment and who consumed fruits and vegetables with a high content of pesticide residues, were less likely to become pregnant. Other study with men who were undergoing infertility treatment, the consumption of fruits and vegetables with high levels of pesticide residues, was associated with a lower count and percentage of morphologically normal sperm (Chiu et al, 2015). Jallow and collaborators (2017) investigated the presence of pesticide residues in fruits and vegetables of common consumption in Kuwait, and demonstrated that 21% of the analyzed samples contained residues above the Maximum Residue Limit (MRL) by the Codex Alimentarius, which suggests potential risk to human health. Pirsaheb et al (2015) demonstrated the presence of two or more organochlorine pesticides in breast milk samples, relating this fact to the consumption of foods that contained residues of these compounds

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