抄録
The IAA Center for Food Quality, Labeling and Consumer Services receives requests to collect risk information from the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, which is in charge of risk management. The center then conducts analysis and research of minute amounts of hazardous substances, such as pesticide residues contained in foods and agricultural products.
The center mainly conducts pesticide residue analysis from three viewpoints. The first is to confirm the propriety of issues like organic farm product labeling. The second is to confirm the proper use of agricultural chemicals on agricultural products in Japan. The last is to submit information to corporations and consumers regarding pesticide residue in imported vegetables. In regards to imported vegetables, analysis was conducted for 103 agricultural chemicals on approximately 650 samples, between April 2004 and March 2005. The most commonly detected were chlorpyrifos, methamidophos and cypermethrin.
The simultaneous analysis method, developed by the center, is a method that uses GC-MS and HPLC for measurement after conducting pretreatment based on refinement by salting out, acetonitrile-hexane partitioning and minicolumn (ENVI-Carb/NH2).
The center conducted the standard tests following the IUPAC protocol to determine the validity of this method. From the tested samples, we adopted only the agricultural chemicals that had additional recovery from 70 to 120% and recorded 2 or lower HORRAT in reproducibility between the inside of rooms and between rooms. As a result, out of approximately 140 agricultural chemicals, 111 were found to be valid.
Internal quality control at the center is conducted by setting target values, repeated examinations, recovery testing and confirming detection limits. Additionally, the center participates in a proficiency test called FAPAS that is conducted annually by the Central Science Laboratory.
