Article Pesticide contaminants bean mustard

DOCUMENT DESCRIPTION

The interest in Southeast Asian vegetables is increasing in Norway and the EU, creating new market opportunities for vegetable and fruit producers and processors in Vietnam. However, Vietnamese vegetables are predominantly exported to markets where importers do not demand pesticide residue testing of the produce (e.g., Russia and China).

In Vietnam, vegetable farmers apply pesticides intensively, often at higher doses than recommended (Pham, 2010). Pesticide use in Vietnam increased from 15,000 to 76,000 tons from 1991 to 2005. More than 7,000 incidents of food poisoning from pesticide residues were reported in 2002 (Nguyen, 2003).

Little is known about the extent and amounts of pesticide residues in fruit and vegetables produced in Vietnam.