Environmental and food sample handling challenges for developing countries

Abstract

As poverty continues in many parts of the developing world, there is an increased demand on resources as well as for clean water, food, and air with increasing populations. Therefore, there is an intensified effort to produce more from land, with very poor soils necessitating the need to use pesticides some of which are persistent in the environment. Malaria continues to kill many and thus pesticide use will continue, and yet it is clear that pesticides and other endocrine disruptors will find their way into the food chain. This mini review looks at the analytical technologies that are available for sample handling of environmental samples and discusses some of the challenges faced by nations that have no capacity to either purchase or maintain some of this equipment.

Keywords:

• sample preparation
• food safety
• environmental health
• molecularly imprinted polymers
• immunosorbents
• solid phase extraction
• solid phase microextraction
• microdialysis