Monitoring and risk assessment of pesticide residues in commercial environment-friendly agricultural products distributed using LC-MS/MS in Seoul metropolitan area

This survey was carried out in 2014 to estimate the pesticide residue levels in commercial environment-friendly agricultural products in Seoul metropolitan area. Pesticide residues in 27 commodities were examined and analyzed using LC-MS/MS, which can simultaneously detect up to 85 pesticides. A total of 441 samples were collected and analyzed. Among the detected samples, the residue levels in 1.2% of organic agricultural products and 2.2% of pesticide-free agricultural products exceeded the maximum residue limits (MRLs); hence, 1.8% of the total samples exceeded the MRLs. The safety of the detected pesticides was assessed by monitoring the acceptable daily intake level (ADI) and acceptable dietary exposure (ADE) to the pesticides via consumption of the commodities. ADI and ADE are found to be 0.07728- 9.46530% and 0.00141-0.17210%, respectively, which means that the residual pesticides in the environmental-friendly agricultural products in Korea are below the safe limit and therefore, pose no potential public health risks.