Pesticides Residue In Ghana Cocoa Beans

Abstract

Background and Objective: Pesticides have received considerable attention as environmental organic pollutant in many continents such as Africa, Europe and Asia. Many Pesticides compounds have been identified and quantified in virtually all segment of the environment due to their carcinogenicity, mutagenicity and cytotoxicity at very low concentrations. The objective of study is to analyse the cocoa beans for pesticides residue, across six different regions of Ghana and to assess the human health risk. Materials and Methods: Dry cocoa beans samples were collected from six cocoa-growing areas in six regions of Ghana. The extracts were analysed for pesticides using the Agilent 6890N GC-FID/MS. Results: The mean levels of pyrethroids in the Eastern, Western, Ashanti, Central, Volta BA ranged between BDL to 19.4 ng/kg, BDL -9.30 ng/kg, 0.20-18.10, BDL-3.90 ng/kg, 0.02-5.10 ng/kg, and BDL-34.00 ng/kg respectively. The total toxicity equivalencies for the seven U.S EPA priority carcinogens calculated was 1.91E-07 in the western region. The carcinogenic risk for an adult involved in a life time of 70 years ingestion of cocoa from the western region was also calculated to be 1.39E-06. The results reveal that the consumption of cocoa from these regions may not pose any significant carcinogenic risk to consumers since the risk value was within the U.S EPA unit risk of 1×10E-05.