Fresh fruit and vegetable safety concerns in Sri Lanka; review of pesticide contamination

Modern agricultural practices relying on agrochemicals have led to the accumulation of residues in food crops, posing potential health risks to consumers, making it crucial to evaluate their contamination levels. This review aims to assess pesticide contamination in fruit and vegetables (F&V) in Sri Lanka. Commonly detected pesticides include chlorpyrifos, profenofos, tebuconazole, diazinon, and fipronil, while a lesser prevalence of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) is seen compared to other considered countries, making a comparatively favorable situation in Sri Lanka. The pesticides profenofos and chlorothalonil were identified with the highest concentrations in local studies, ranging from 0.004 to 21.98 mg/kg and from 0.01 to 19.37 mg/kg, respectively. Leafy vegetables were particularly susceptible to pesticide contamination, with approximately 44.3% of pennywort samples and 43.3% of joyweed samples contaminated with at least one pesticide. Among 2355 evaluated F&V samples, profenofos had the highest contamination (8.8%) and exceeded MRLs (7.9%), followed by chlorpyrifos, highlighting the highest contamination from organophosphates. Investigations emphasize the importance of continuous monitoring, stringent regulations, statistically sound studies, enforcing national maximum residue limits (MRLs), promoting Good Agricultural Practices (GAP), and organic farming where collaborative and sustained efforts are required to address unsolved issues like chronic kidney disease of unknown etiology (CKDu) and detection of pesticides in F&V above MRLs. •Pesticide contamination in fresh fruit and vegetables in Sri Lanka is presented.•All the tested fruit and vegetables were free from POP pesticides.•Profenofos and chlorpyrifos had the highest contamination.•High susceptibility of contamination was observed in leafy vegetables.•Out of the total leafy vegetable samples, 43.6% were contaminated.