A ten-year surveillance of PCDD/Fs and PCBs in raw milk from bovine, ovine, and caprine farms in a peri-industrial area of southern Italy.
- Open access
Ten-year surveillance reveals that PCBs decrease with distance from industry, while PCDD/Fs show no spatial gradient in raw milk from small ruminants in southern Italy.
- Why it matters: Persistent environmental contamination from industrial activities poses ongoing food safety risks, yet long-term, multi-species data are limited in Europe to inform effective monitoring and regulation.
- What they did: Researchers analyzed 671 raw milk samples from bovine, ovine, and caprine farms using high-resolution gas chromatography-mass spectrometry, modeling contamination trends over a decade with respect to farm proximity, species, and year.
- The result: Caprine and ovine milk had higher contaminant levels than bovine, and contamination increased over time, highlighting small ruminants as sensitive indicators and supporting soil-informed, species-specific surveillance strategies.