Abstract
Nowadays agriculture represents most important economic activity. Agricultural pesticides that are deliberately used to
escalate crop yield unfortunately are endowed with many latent and insidious adverse effects. Pesticides and poly-aromatic
hydrocarbons are identified worldwide as toxic environmental pollutants that persist in the environment and bioaccumulates
in the food chain. This study was thus designed for the analysis of pesticide residues and Polyaromatic hydrocarbons in fruits
and vegetables, water and soil. This work was done with the objective to develop an analytical method for selectively and
sensitively detecting pesticides and polyaromatic hydrocarbons in different environmental matrices. For this purpose samples
of selected fruits, vegetables, soil and water collected from agricultural land were analyzed to determine the residues of
selected organochlorine pesticides (Bifenthrin, Imidacloprid, Difenoconazole) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons
(Anthracene , Phenanthrene) by High Pressure Liquid Chromatography. The selected method beautifully allowed the
qualitative and quantitative determination of Pesticides and Polyaromatic hydrocarbons in selected samples. Results of study
revealed the presence of Anthracene in a concentration ranges from 0.0655-31.632mg/kg, Difenoconazole in concentration
ranges from 0.03-18.604mg/kg and Bifenthrin in concentration ranges from 0.024-11.74 mg/kg in different study samples
which were exceeding maximum residue limits (MRL) set by Codex Alimentarius Commission.
