The Importance of Place: Plant Uptake of Pollutants and Essential Minerals Grown in Environmentally Compromised Rural and Urban Gardens.

Community members are gardening in and near environmentally comprised areas. Few gardeners are testing for pollutants in addition to basic agronomic parameters and uncertainties about specific cleanup and land reuse standards are recognized as policy barriers to implementing locally based agricultural projects. Thus, efforts are needed to investigate and evaluate the specific risks associated with growing food adjacent to contaminated sites, balanced with the health benefits of eating locally grown food. Case studies from both urban and rural gardens will be presented to compare the uptake patterns of deleterious metal(loid)s (arsenic, lead, cadmium) and minerals (calcium, magnesium, potassium, and selenium) in culturally relevant produce (e.g. kale, collards, carrots, peppers). In general, when compared to the US Food and Drug Administration’s Market Basket Study (i.e. what could be expected from a typical U.S. grocery store), the locally grown vegetables accumulated more harmful elements as well as essential minerals. Produce from certain plant families (e.g. Asteraceae, Brassicaceae, and Apiaceae) accumulated more arsenic, lead, and cadmium than others, and although they themselves might not be the major source of exposure, they may contribute to an already chemically burdened body. In order to inform policy, is essential to characterize the fate and transport of contaminants in soil-plant systems, conduct exposure assessments (soil, water, produce), and determine to what extent urban or rural gardening contribute to one’s total lead, arsenic, and cadmium body burden. Future research efforts will investigate the bioaccessibility of known and emerging pollutants in locally grown produce, the actual intake rate of produce grown in these settings, and the cost-benefit ratio between the nutritional gains of locally grown produce versus the impact of a chronic low-level exposure to pollutants.