Contributions of pesticide residue chemistry to improving food and environmental safety: past and present accomplishments and future challenges

Abstract

The principles of modern pesticide residue chemistry were articulated in the 1950s. Early authors pointed out the advantages of systematizing and standardizing analytical methods for pesticides so that they could be widely practiced and the results could be reproduced from one laboratory to the next. The availability of improved methods has led to a much more complete understanding of pesticide behavior and fate in foods and the environment. Using methods based largely upon gas chromatography (GC) and high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) coupled increasingly with mass spectrometry (MS) and MS(n) as the detection tool, residues can be measured at parts per billion levels and below in a variety of food and environmental matrices. Development of efficient extraction and cleanup methods, techniques such as ELISA, efficient sample preparation techniques such as QuEChERS, and automated laboratory and field instrumentation has also contributed to the tools available for use in modern pesticide residue analysis. As a result, great strides have been made in improving food and worker safety and in understanding environmental behavior and fate of pesticides. There are many challenges remaining in the field of pesticide residue chemistry that will continue to stimulate analytical chemists. New chemistries are emerging, often patterned on complex natural products. Analyzing for the parent chemicals and potentially multiple breakdown products will require analytical ingenuity. The development of more sensitive bioassays and knowledge of unintended side effects will challenge residue chemistry as well, as in the case of following the fate of environmental endocrine disruptors associated with some pesticides as well as nonpesticide contaminants from packaging materials and other familiar articles. Continued funding and other resources to ensure better training, international cooperation, and accelerated research and development activities will be a constant need in pesticide residue chemistry as it is for all areas of science that aim to mitigate or eliminate contaminants that can affect human and environmental health and safety.