Pesticide residues in traditional and industrial honey marketed in Morocco and potential health risk

ABSTRACT

This study evaluated the presence of the three pesticides methomyl (MET), carbendazim (CBZ) and chlorpyrifos-ethyl (CPE), as well as the degradation product of CPE (3,5,6-trichloro-2-pyridinol; TCP), in 44 honey samples from all 12 regions of Morocco. With a validated HPLC-UV method occurrence frequencies of 63.6% for MET, 54.5% for CBZ, 95.1% for CPE and 34.1% for TCP were obtained, even at concentrations higher than the maximum residue limits for MET, CPE and TCP. Based on the predominant pesticide, principal component analysis separated sampling regions into three groups. Risk assessment indicated that ingestion of these pesticides, alone or in combination, in honey did not pose a risk to consumers (HQ and HI < 1).

KEYWORDS:

• Pesticides
• methomyl
• carbendazim
• chlorpyrifos-ethyl
• 3,5,6-trichloro-2-pyridinol
• honey
• HPLC-UV
• extraction
• Principal Component Analysis
• risk assessment

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Center for Nuclear Energy, Science and Technology (CNESTEN) as an internal project grant.