USDA’s Agricultural Research Service (ARS) announced several key outcomes from a workshop to develop a research roadmap that would lead to short and long-term science-based solutions to meet the emerging challenges posed by the discovery of Per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in agricultural soils and waters.

 

The suggested long-term roadmap solutions for improving these circumstances include finding new means of detecting when PFAS contamination is a problem, better understanding of how it moves through the agricultural system and innovating new ways to interrupt that movement or remove the chemicals before they can do harm.

 

“Currently, our data shows that PFAS is an environmental hazard that does not come from agriculture,” said Acting Assistant Administrator Marlen Eve. “But producers need efficient, cost-effective ways to deal with the challenges when it is detected in our agricultural soils and waters.”

 

Other topics of discussion at the workshop included a strategy for data standardization and integration, how to develop scientific solutions to management of municipal biosolids, and ways of effectively removing existing PFAS chemicals from the production environment.