Soil thresholds and a decision tool to manage food safety of crops grown in chlordecone polluted soil in the French West Indies

- Chlordecone contamination of crops depends on soil pollution, soil and crop type.
- Compliance of the products with EU regulation (MRL) is well predicted by the model.
- 0.1 mgkg−1 is a simplified chlordecone soil threshold for root vegetables and tubers.
- 1 mgkg−1 is a simplified chlordecone soil threshold for most cucurbits and lettuce.

Due to the persistent pollution of soils by an organochlorine, chlordecone (CLD also known as Kepone ©) in the French West Indies, some crops may be contaminated beyond the European regulatory threshold, the maximum residue limit (MRL). Farmers need to be able to foresee the risk of not complying with the regulatory threshold in each field and for each crop, if not, farmers whose fields are contaminated would have to stop cultivating certain crops in the fields concerned. To help farmers make the right choices, we studied the relationship between contamination of the soil and contamination of crops. We showed that contamination of a crop by CLD depended on the crop concerned, the soil CLD content and the type of soil. We grouped crop products in three categories: (i) non-uptakers and low-uptakers, (ii) medium-uptakers, and (iii) high-uptakers, according to their level of contamination and the resulting risk of exceeding MRL. Using a simulation model, we computed the soil threshold required to ensure the risk of not complying with MRL was sufficiently low for each crop product and soil type. Threshold values ranged from 0.02 μgkg−1 for dasheen grown in nitisol to 1.7 μgkg−1 for yam grown in andosol in the high-uptake category, and from 1 μgkg−1 for lettuce grown in nitisol to 45 μgkg−1 for the leaves of spring onions grown in andosol in the medium-uptake category. Contamination of non-uptakers and low-uptakers did not depend on soil contamination. With these results, we built an easy-to-use decision support tool based on two soil thresholds (0.1 and 1 μgkg−1) to enable growers to adapt their cropping system and hence to be able to continue farming.

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