Healthy Soils, Healthy Farmers: Assessing Farmers’ Soil Contact Activities and Soil Contamination on Urban and Rural Farms

The purpose of this project is to investigate and contextualize environmental health risks associated with exposure to potential soil contaminants among urban and rural farmers. Most occupational investigations of health risks among agricultural workers have focused on accidents, injuries, and exposure to pesticides in rural locations (Alavanja et al. 1996; Alavanja et al. 1999; Racine et al. 2012). For farmers, direct soil contact is an important, but poorly characterized source of exposure to potential soil contaminants. Urban soils may be contaminated with heavy metals (e.g., lead and arsenic) due to their natural occurrence, as well as current and historical industrial activity (e.g., fossil fuel combustion and waste incineration), and legacy uses of lead-based paint and leaded gasoline (Mielke et al. 1983; Mielke and Reagan 1998; Mielke et al. 2011; Schwarz et al. 2012; Yesilonis et al. 2008). The increased interest in and practice of urban agriculture (Palmer 2018) has raised concerns about risks stemming from farmers’ exposure to soil contaminants and exposures resulting from consumption of urban-grown fruits and vegetables (Kim et al. 2014). Rural soils may be contaminated with heavy metals due to current and historical and applications of persistent pesticides (e.g., lead arsenate) or from previous land uses or contamination events unknown to the farmer (Hood 2006; McBride et al. 2015). Given increased interest in local, sustainable food production, and the simultaneous loss in agricultural land (particularly in the Northeastern US) to other non-agricultural land uses (America’s Farmland Trust 2018), new and younger farmers may take on rehabilitation of land for which the previous land uses are unknown. 

No public or occupational health agency is responsible for surveillance and routine monitoring of contaminants in agricultural soils. Soil contaminant testing is highly recommended by the US EPA before establishing any urban agriculture project (US EPA 2011b), but comparable guidance is not available for rural farms. Interpretation of contaminant results is difficult because current health-based guidelines for contaminants in soil can vary widely by jurisdiction and designated land use (Jennings 2013a, b). No guidance values for soil contaminants exist for agricultural land that are intended to protect farmers. To inform evidence-based guidelines for contaminants in soil, research is needed to understand the nature and extent (e.g., the frequency, duration, and intensity) of soil contact among farmers in urban and rural contexts. The conduct of this research will provide participating farmers with soil contaminant testing services. These individual results can be used to inform soil conservation and management decisions in the short term. The long-term impacts of this research will improve the health and well-being of farmers by increasing our understanding of farmers’ interactions with soil contaminants as a potential contributing factor to acute and chronic illness and disease. More importantly, this research will generate information about farmers’ soil contact necessary to inform evidence-based recommendations to reduce exposure that are practicable for farmers in both urban and rural contexts and can be used to improve the quality of life for farmers and their employees.