Health Risk Assessment of Organophosphate Pesticidal Residue in Selected Daily Consumed Vegetables in Akure Metropolis

Farmers highly depend on chemical pesticides in recent farming practices to ensure expected yield is met, and organophosphates pesticides has been the common pesticides used on fruits and vegetables, this pesticide’s instruction are not dully followed by farmers. Thereby the possibility of residue of these pesticides will continually be a concern. Acceptable daily intake values are being set by WHO and Food and Drug Agency using Cordex, and also the maximum residual limits of each pesticides in each fruit and vegetables to ensure safe level is maintained. But the farmers might not be informed about the possibility of the dangers of long-term exposure to the pesticide. This study shows the concentration level of organophosphate residue in fruits eaten almost every day in relation to the health risk values. The concentration ranges from Fenamiphos with a mean concentration of 0.08mg/kg showing the lowest while bromophos-methyl showed a mean concentration of1.136mg/kg as the highest mean concentration followed by azinfos-methyl with a mean concentration of 1.056mg/kg, then Chlorpyrifos with mean concentration of 1.046mg/kg. Bromophos-ethyl was only detected in tomatoes and onions, Etrimfos was not detected in carrot and carrot has the least pesticides summation of the detected pesticide while garden egg sample shows the highest concentration summation followed by tomato, a daily consumed vegetable/fruit in the southern part of Nigeria. It also revealed that the health risk index for children is of concern than other population therefore cooking these vegetable and fruits is recommended to greatly lower the residues.