Monitoring of pesticide residues in peppers from farmgate and pepper powder from wholesale market in Chungbuk area and their risk assessment

In order to monitor the pesticide residues in/on peppers and pepper powder and to assess their risk, pesticides in/on green pepper from 10 farmgates and fresh red pepper from 9 farmgates in Chungbuk area and pepper powder from 6 wholesale markets in Cheongju city were analyzed with a GLC and an HPLC. Also, pepper powder made by pulverization of the dried red pepper was analyzed to elucidate the change of pesticide residues in fresh red pepper by oven-drying. The number of pesticides detected from peen pepper, fresh red pepper, dried red pepper and pepper powder were 9, 12, 12, and 17, respectively, including 10 pesticides (one fungicide and nine insecticides) which were exceeded the maximum residue limits (MRLs). The exceeding rate of the MRL were higher in dried red pepper and pepper powder than in green pepper and fresh red pepper. Although some pesticides in peppers and pepper powder exceeded the MRLs, their estimated daily intake(EDI) were less than 1.6% of their acceptable daily intakes(ADIs), suggesting that it would be estimated to safe. By oven-drying of fresh red pepper at for 72 hours, the weight of dried red pepper was from 1/5.9 from 1/7.8 of fresh red pepper, while the concentration of pesticide residue in dried red pepper increased from 1.7 to 8.2 times, suggesting that further reconsideration was required for the MRL of pepper powder.