Assessment of exposure and health impacts associated with agricultural practices (C-AGRI)

Background and challenges

Agrosystems, in addition to their production function and the supply service they provide, are a major component contributing to the quality of the environment. Indeed, they represent more than 50% of the land area, contribute to the development of landscapes, and are sources of pollution (emissions of pollutants - pesticides, ammonia, nitrates, etc. - and greenhouse gases). Agricultural practices condition the nature of potential drawbacks induced, for example, by uncontrolled fertilisation or by crop protection practices using phytopharmaceutical products. The organisation of crops in the landscape, the introduction of agro-ecological infrastructures (hedges, buffer zones) and the conditions of work and land use condition the fate and flows of contaminants beyond the plot; these flows are modulated by environmental conditions (topography, climate) and are the determining factors in the exposure to contaminants of agricultural origin of the various populations located in the zone of influence of the agricultural plot.

Thus, the environmental impact of agricultural production is associated with contamination, human exposure to contaminants and a potential impact on health. Exposure is the result of a set of processes of various origins involving different disciplines (market economics, sociology of farms, psychology of farmers and residents, agronomy of systems, environmental biogeochemistry, physics of transfers, expology, eco-epidemiology, toxicology, etc.).

The scientific challenge is to develop integration approaches at different levels at the level of production systems (integrated assessment of contaminant flows associated with a system), at the spatial level (integration of plot neighbourhoods, organisation of landscape components and developments), at the temporal level (integration of contaminant and population evolution dynamics) and at the level of the exposure of different populations, in particular pregnant women and mother-child cohorts, and its impact on health (aggregation of contamination pathways and taking into account exposure temporalities).

Goals

The objective of the consortium is to create a dynamic for sharing knowledge, approaches, assessment and modelling tools, and observation and experimentation systems to address the continuum of the chain [production - agricultural practices - fate and transfer of contaminants - health impacts], by analysing the interactions at each of the interfaces of these different links and by proposing integrated approaches to the impacts and associated costs. The aim is to identify the bridges that need to be created or developed at these interfaces, and to discuss the underlying assumptions in each discipline.

INRAE units involved

• Ecologie fonctionnelle et écotoxicologie des agroécosystèmes
• Physiopatologie des adaptations nutritionnelles
• Toxicologie alimentaire
• Laboratoire d'étude des résidus et des contaminants dans les aliments
• Laboratoire d'étude des interactions entre sol-agrosystème-hydrosystème
• Technologie et méthodes pour les agricultures de demain
• Laboratoire de biotechnologie de l'environnement
• Science Action Développement - Activités Produits Terroirs
• Laboratoire Agronomie et Environnement
• Alimentation et sciences sociales
• Sol Agro et Hydrosystème Spatialisation

Partners

• ANSES – Phytopharmacovigilance
• INERIS - Unité de Toxicologie Expérimentale et Modélisation
• INSERM – Equipe Epidémiologie des cancers et expositions environnementales