Heavy Metals Tainting China's Rice Bowls
Researchers say cadmium and other sewage toxins have poisoned large amounts of a Chinese staple. As much as 10 percent of China's rice may be tainted by poisonous cadmium, a heavy metal discharged in mine and industrial sewage that makes its way into rice paddies, according to agricultural researchers at a major university. Much of this poisoned rice is consumed by farm families or sold in areas of the nation's food market beyond the reach of government safety regulators.
Following the lead of research conducted by scientists at Nanjing Agricultural University's agricultural resource and environment institute, a Caixin probe found several dozen farmers in the village of Sidi in southern China's Guangxi Autonomous Region have been troubled by a strange weakness of the legs for decades. Health officials have declined to link the feeble leg condition to pollution, but similar conditions have been found among farmers in Zhejiang Province that the Nanjing scientists blamed on high levels of cadmium in the rice local families eat almost daily. Rice is a staple food for 65 percent of the population in China, where annual rice farm output is about 200 million tons.