ABSTRACT
The use of pesticides particularly in crop production has continued to increase especially in developing countries with little or no measure of protection to exposed consumers due to lack of or improper implementation of legislations and ignorance of proper usage of these pesticides. The populace in such regions or countries may thus be exposed to diverse risks associated with consumption of contaminated food items resulting from intense and indiscriminate use of pesticides.
On the basis of some studies that have confirmed the presence and hence use of organochlorine pesticides in the production of cowpea crop and others that evaluated the effect of traditional processing on the concentration of organochlorine pesticides in cowpea, this study is in the line of discovering household agents, measures and conditions that would be effective in conferring some measure of safety on the consumers of cowpea which are more often than not, treated with pesticides. The study thus evaluates the effectiveness of a of non-toxic house-hold agent, common salt on the concentration of lindane and endosulfan, both organochlorine pesticides, in cowpea.
The employed methods in the investigation included soaking contaminated cowpea in a solution of various concentrations of sodium chloride and washing with tap water as control; all at 40oC for various time intervals. The pesticide residues in the prepared cowpea samples were separated by Soxhlet extraction, then analyzed and their mean concentrations determined by gas chromatography equipped with a mass spectrometry (GC-MS).
The results reveal an increased effectiveness of removal of both lindane and endosulfan, the representative organochlorine pesticides, with increase in concentration of sodium chloride solution from 5% to 10% and also with increasing time intervals from 0 minute to 15 and 30 minutes.
Conclusively, soaking cowpea in a 5% or 10% solution of common salt for 15-30 minutes can be employed to effectively reduce the concentration of organochlorine pesticides from cowpea. This may thus be employed to reduce exposure of consumers of cowpea to reduce exposure to the initial, usually high concentrations of organochlorine pesticides that may be present in the grains.
