There are lots of farms right next to the freeways and highways in the US. Wouldn’t lead and other debris from traffic contaminate the soil over time making the produce unsafe?
In: Biology
Kind of, but almost certainly not enough to really matter. There’s roads everywhere, so it’s pretty hard to isolate farms completely from the impacts of traffic. And tailpipe emissions end up far, far away from roads regardless. Highway runoff is another matter, but I usually see some sort of ditch or other buffer between farm fields and the sides of any major road. And even if there isn’t, we’re talking about a small strip of land – unless you’re exclusively eating “right on the side of the road” produce, you’re just not going to get that much in your system.
Would it be better if every bit of cropland was absolutely secured against any kind of contaminants? Sure, but the effort involved would likely greatly increase the cost of produce (and everything that uses produce). Maybe it’s worth paying a premium, but frankly, farms have been located next to roads since roads have been a thing, and we’re not all dropping dead from consuming dangerously contaminated produce.
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