ADFCA Pesticides Residues in Vegetables

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Agricultural practices and food safety
Dr. Adnan I. Al-Samarrie, Assoc. Prof.,
Toxicology, Abu Dhabi Food Control Authority
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Two Main Issues will be discussed

• Briefing ADFCA strategy in the field of food
  safety.
• ADFCA recent policy concerning field auditing in
  order to adopt GAP in Abu Dhabi agricultural
  fields.

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Food safety
It is a wide spectrum field it needs several
bodies to organize their acts to achieve the
goal.
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• Food safety is not necessarily related to
  toxic-free materials.

• People and scientists are more concerned about
  toxicants.

Environmental Contaminants
Pesticides
Hormones
Microbes
GMOs
Metals
Radiation
Stones
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ADFCA strategy to assure food safety
To reach this goal, ADFCA is performing in
stepwise the following

• Initiate the required legislations.
• Improve manpower capabilities. Develop sampling
  methods and inspection systems.
• Encourage the producers to adopt GMP, GAP
• Transparency with the stockholders
• Update the Laboratories instrumentation and
  analytical
• methods.

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Food Safety pathway....
Foods need to be safe during entire whole food
handling chain
Farm To
Table
Farm To
Fork
Foods can be contaminated in


Both
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Critical Points in Food Contamination

• Environmental Contaminants drifting.
  

• Insects Physical and Biological Damages.

• Animals Sources of microbial contaminants,
  physical damage

• Soil Contaminants uptake or transmitted.

• Water During Irrigation and post harvest
  washing process the food process.

• Equipment field crop growing, harvesting,
  storage and transport.

• Handling Pre harvesting misuse of pesticides
  and fertilizers pre-, during and post
  harvesting.

• Storage, distribution under bad conditions and
  poor hygiene

• Retailers and Consumers Poor Hygiene

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Foodborne illness
It is the major threat to the produce health

• In USA (1990-1998) the number of outbreaks
  associated with fresh produce steadily increased.
• Three-quarters (75.3) of the outbreaks in USA
  were related to domestically grown produce.
• Most of the outbreaks were caused by bacteria,
  especially Salmonella species and E. coli O157H7.

Hilborn, E.D. et.al., 1999, Arch. Intern. Med.
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U.S. Market for Food Safety Testing by Type of
Contaminant, 1999-2009, (millions). Source BCC,
Inc. After Strasburger Siegal INC.
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How To Improve Food Safety in the Farm
It needs the following

• Management

• Documentation

• Good field practices

How to evaluate the farm good practices???
Auditing is the tool .
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ADFCA GAP PROGRAM (FARM AUDIT FORM) Pesticides
usage and storage
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ADFCA GAP PROGRAM (FARM AUDIT FORM) Pesticides
usage and storage
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What is the auditor looking for?

• Management Handling the input and output.

• Documentation The reports and logbooks

• Good field practices Follow the SOPs
  specialist advices

Farm Practices
Crop Growing
Harvesting
Handling packing
Storage in field
Transportation
Post Farm
Consumers
Retailers
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Crop Growing
Guidelines Regulations
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Guidelines Regulations

• Water
• Source
• Chemical
• Contaminants
• Salinity
• Microbial loading

• Manure Biosolid
• Source
• Composting methods
• Microbial loading
• Chemical contaminants
• Application

• Agrochemicals
• Fertilizers
• Pesticides
• Growth regulators
• Application

Hygiene Farm workers
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Water Parameters
The auditor checks

• Water sources treated municipal waste water,
  desalinate water.

• Water chemical contaminants heavy metal,
  pesticides, nitrate,
• Phosphates, etc.

• Biological contamination bacteria, fungus,
  Parasites.

• Water salinity Total dissolved solids, pH, E.C.

• Water contact Minimize contacts between
  irrigation water and the
• edible plant parts.

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Agrochemicals Hygiene
The auditor checks

• Fertilizers types, soil parameters, rain, leach
  ability.

• Pesticides registration, pests, applicators,
  pre harvesting period,
• reentry time, waste management.

• Application practices and records.

• Growth Regulators IGRs and PGRs comply with
  local regulations

Hygiene workers, sanitation standards, medical
records.
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Manure is a source of contamination
The auditor inspects

• Manure source cattle species, age of animals

• Composting method heating temperature, period
  of heating, aeration.

• Chemical contaminants heavy metals, pH,
  pesticides, etc.

• Microbial loading pathogenic microbes,
  intensity.

• Time of application harvesting time, irrigation
  method,
• incorporate with the soil.

• Bio Solids Composting, plantation. Local
  regulations.

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General Concerns

• Once food contaminated, it is very difficult to
  decontaminate.

• Minimize the sources of food contamination.

• Fallow the specialist advices.

• Enroll the farm in auditing system.

• Training the farm workers at all levels of good
  agricultural practices.

• Documentation should cover all farm activities.

• The corrective actions should be implemented at
  appropriate time.

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Adfca Pesticides Monitoring program (2006-2008)
Asma Abdi Mohammed Head of Pesticides Residues
Unit Abu Dhabi Food Control Authority
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Introduction

• In general pesticides are used to control pests
  such as insects, fungi, weeds rodents but in
  the same time these chemicals harm the
  environment human being .
• The Government of UAE Regulates the usage of
  Pesticides
• Because of awareness, common public have a great
  concern about the pesticides residues in
  vegetables and fruits.
• ADFCA pesticides residues monitoring program try
  to ensure that human dietary intake of these
  pesticides are at acceptable levels which are
  not harmful to human health .

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• ADFCA Monitoring Program
• ADFCA Started pesticides residues monitoring
  program in 2006 .
• Focused on imported Local product (vegetables
  fruits).
• ADFCA are using state-of- the- art instruments.
• The laboratories Department of ADFCA are UKAS
  accredited

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• Legislation of MRLs
• Maximum Residues Level (MRL) is the highest
  level of pesticides residues that is legally
  tolerated in consumed food.
• ADFCA relies on the UAE Gulf standards, Codex
  Alimentarius and EU standards for pesticides
  MRLs.

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Sampling

• Trained inspectors of ADFCA collect the samples
  according to ADFCA sampling methods.
• Domestic samples are collected from AD
  Municipality Agricultural Products Collection
  Center.
• Imported samples are collected from Abu Dhabi
  markets.

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Analytical Methods

• The pesticides residues unit in ADFCA adapted a
  multi residues method which cover broad spectrum
  of pesticides and different commodities of
  vegetables and fruits
• Analyses are performed by highly skilled
  competent staff.
• The procedure is based on qualitative
  quantitative analysis.
• Used equipment are (GC/ECD),(GC/NPD) and all
  the conformations are curried out using (GC/MS).

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Quality Assurance

• Participation in External Proficiency Test
  Programs.
• To meet the highest standard of accuracy the
  calibration of standard is always prepare in
  matrix .
• Used method is accredited by UKAS.

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Results The results are summarized In the
forthcoming tables and figures
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• The results of 2006-2008 indicated that the
  numbers of the samples free of pesticide residues
  decreased, whereas the samples within MRLs did
  rise and that can be revealing to
• 1- Sampling scheme during 2007 concentrated on
  the most suspected commodities based on 2006
  results, and the sampling of 2008 based on same
  manner.
• 2- Extend the pesticides during 2008 and the
  number of samples

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• Recommendation
• 1- Educate the farmers to follow Good
  Agricultural Practice.
• 2- Sampling scheme needs to be based on regional
  productions.
• 3-Extend the analysis to cover more commodities.
• 4-Risk analysis of the residues data.

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Thank You