Relevance of integrating agricultural practices in pesticide dietary intake indicator

The aim of this study is to develop a new indicator of pesticide dietary intake to screen pesticides to include in monitoring programs. This new indicator called the adjusted TMDI (TMDI_Ad), taking account actual pesticide agricultural uses in France, is more precise than the theoretical maximum dietary intake (TMDI), based on maximum residue levels (MRLs) that is usually used. This new modeling of dietary intake is refined according to actual agricultural pesticide uses on 44 raw agricultural commodities (RAC), among the most consumed in France, and the rate of food importation of these RAC. The TMDI_Ad was below the TMDI for 322 pesticides (79%). The TMDI was above the ADI, for 46 substances. Although 43 of them had a TMDI_Ad below the TMDI, still 36 had a TMDI_Ad above the ADI, which corresponded to substances with the lowest ADIs. Overall, these results indicate that the TMDI_Ad is a useful tool to plan monitoring programs and to refine dietary exposure, according to actual pesticide uses. However, for very toxic substances, having a very low ADI, such as unauthorized substances, other studies have to be conducted in order to better estimate consumer dietary intakes.