H2020 SPRINT Project: Sustainable Transition in Plant Protection: A Global Health Approach
- Type Project
- Status Firmado
- Execution 2020 -2025
- Assigned Budget 14.994.445,00 €
- Scope Europeo
- Main source of financing H2020
- Project website Proyecto SPRINT
The EU's Farm to Fork Strategy aims to reduce overall use and risk of chemical pesticides by 50% and the use of more hazardous pesticides by 50% by 2030. This is the first time that a quantified pesticide reduction target has been set at EU level. The EU-funded SPRINT project will help achieve these goals.
Bringing together a global team of scientists from across Europe and Argentina, the project will develop, test, validate, and deliver a set of global health risk assessment tools for the integrated assessment of pesticide impacts on terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, as well as on plant, animal, and human health. It will also evaluate the sustainability of alternative strategies to pesticide use and develop transition pathways toward more sustainable plant protection.
The SPRINT project is progressing as planned toward the overall objective of developing a set of global health risk assessment tools. This will result in an assessment of the impact of plant protection product (PP) use on ecosystem, plant, animal, and human health (EPAH). A field sampling campaign was completed in 10 EU countries and Argentina. Information on PPP use in conventional and organic farming practices was collected. Volunteer farmers, their neighbors, and consumers participated in a human biomonitoring survey, with additional collection of indoor dust samples and wristbands for analysis for more than 200 PPPs.
All participants completed questionnaires, and farmers provided information on their farming practices to support interpretation of measurement data. Additional environmental samples (soil, sediment, water, dust/outdoor air, crops, bat feces, earthworms, and fish) were collected from conventional and organic farms. Most analyses were completed, and findings were discussed with participants. In addition, a small study was conducted in seven countries to assess the contribution of dietary FP intake. Field data were combined with existing data to understand the presence of PPPs in homes and outdoor environments. Real-life exposure to PPP mixtures in body fluids, homes, and environmental samples reported the presence of PPPs, which can be used for exposure assessment. To understand the relationship between exposure and effects, ecotoxicological studies were conducted with terrestrial and aquatic organisms, including a selection of relevant and sensitive non-target species. For human health toxicity, in vitro testing was conducted in a laboratory setting and will continue with selected PPPs.
Experiments were conducted on the health of chickens exposed to glyphosate. The results of PPP presence, exposure, and health impacts will be used to model the overall impact of PPP applications in conventional and organic farming systems. We will attempt to use the results obtained in the 10 EU countries studied to predict the impact of conventional and organic farming practices on the health of EPAHs. Preliminary results were presented at the UN Science Summit at the 78th UN General Assembly.
Current agricultural systems rely on the use of plant protection products (PPPs) to ensure high productivity and control threats to crop quality. However, their use can have significant impacts on human health and the environment. SPRINT will develop and validate a comprehensive health risk assessment toolkit that integrates assessments of PPP impacts on ecosystem, plant, animal, and human health (EPAH).
The main objective is to use integrated risk assessments at the local, regional, national, and European levels to map the impacts of PPPs on the health of EPAHs. We will focus on the different patterns of PPP use and the residue mixes detected in conventional/integrated and organic farming systems.
Pathways to transition to sustainable pesticide use will be identified through a multi-stakeholder approach, focusing on the following objectives:
- Collaborate with local, regional, national, and international stakeholders to identify knowledge needs and improve awareness and confidence in integrated pesticide risk assessments.
- To evaluate PPP component mixtures and their distribution in EPAHs and related health states in conventional/integrated and organic agricultural systems.
- To estimate direct and indirect pathways of PPP exposure levels at representative case study sites (CSS).
- Develop laboratory tests to determine the effects of PPP mixtures.
- Develop a comprehensive health risk assessment toolkit for assessing the risks and impacts of PPP mixtures, linking exposure to health impacts.
- To assess the integrated risks, costs, and benefits of using PPPs in different agricultural systems at the micro and macroeconomic levels.
- Propose transition pathways toward sustainable plant protection, provide policy recommendations, and develop a research agenda.
SPRINT will develop and validate a Global Health Risk Assessment Toolbox to integrate assessments of the impacts of plant protection products (PPPs) on ecosystem, plant, animal, and human health (EPAH), using three key attributes for health status: resilience, reproduction/productivity, and disease manifestation.
The objective is an integrated risk assessment at the local, regional, national, and European levels, focusing on different patterns of plant protection product use and residue mixtures detected in contrasting agricultural systems (conventional, integrated, organic). SPRINT consists of nine interconnected work packages. The distribution and health impacts of PPPs in PAHs will be assessed at eleven case study sites (CSSs), ten located in diverse European agricultural landscapes and one in Argentina (feed soybean production for the EU market).
The environmental pathways of PPPs and the direct (food/feed ingestion) and indirect (air/dust inhalation and dermal absorption) exposure routes of animals and humans will be assessed to improve current fate, exposure, and toxicokinetic models (e.g., EFSA-FOCUS, BROWSE, BREAM). (Eco)toxicological trials will be conducted based on the CCS findings, using existing and improved procedures, including alternative test criteria and new target organisms. Such trials will cover direct and indirect exposure to multiple PPP residues, realistic ranges of PPP concentrations, multi-species scenarios, and short- and long-term time horizons.
Sustainability modeling and cost-benefit analyses will be conducted at the farm and macroeconomic levels to derive recommendations for sustainable transition pathways and a research agenda on PPPs. SPRINT relies on a multi-stakeholder approach with CCS platforms to engage stakeholders and identify their respective needs, collaboration with relevant working groups, raising awareness among farmers and citizens, jointly developing novel management strategies to reduce reliance on PPP use, and creating an enabling environment for adoption and change.
Field sampling results were used to support and evaluate computer model estimates of the environmental fate of PPPs, as well as human and livestock exposure. Monitoring and hazard information was used to develop a pesticide prioritization index and to select mixtures for human and ecosystem risk assessment.
Existing and new assays are being used to determine PPP toxicities in innovative laboratory platforms, including testing in ecologically sensitive species and the use of mesocosms. Animal and human evaluation involves limited in vivo testing (mice and rats) to verify suspicious observations from in vitro tests. The results of this experimental work will support physiologically based kinetic (PBK) models that describe PPP uptake, distribution, metabolism, and excretion. These PBK models will improve the interpretation of field sample results with respect to the source of PPP exposure in humans and farm animals, e.g., dietary or non-dietary origin.
These results will support predictions of expected impacts on health status with respect to three key attributes: resilience, reproduction/productivity, and disease manifestation. With the Global Health Risk Assessment Toolbox, SPRINT integrates PPP health impact assessments from the PAHs. Predictions are being scaled up according to certain European-scale sustainable transition scenarios, specifying the variability of known and unknown uncertainties in each case.
Our subsequent modeling will help assess and quantify the economic impact of the organic management system compared to the conventional management system in terms of crop protection expenditures, cost-effectiveness of those expenditures, total labor expenditures, and gross farm income. For each policy-relevant transition scenario, the health impact and broader socioeconomic implications for farmers, neighbors, and consumers will be predicted, disaggregated by gender where possible. The predicted outcomes for conventional and organic farming systems will guide policy actions to encourage the transition to more sustainable agricultural practices related to the use of PPPs.
- WAGENINGEN UNIVERSITY (WU)
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