Rice Polluted with Heavy Metals Ending up on Market: Report

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Some 10 percent of rice sold in China is contaminated with cadmium, a chemical that leads to softening of the bones and kidney failure, Beijing-based Century Weekly magazine reported Monday.

The substance was mostly detected in rice produced in southern parts of China including Jiangxi, Hunan and Guangdong provinces, the report said.

The report highlights a prominent but ongoing problem of Chinese soil being polluted with heavy metals discharged from massive mining operations and other industrial activities over the years.

Other chemical substances including lead have also been detected in rice, the report said, citing a study by Nanjing Agricultural University. "

"Rice is the main food in Chinese people's diets, but not many people pay attention to the serious problem of heavy metal contamination in rice," Zeng Xibo, a researcher from the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, told the Global Times.

The report said dozens of residents in Sidi village, Yangshuo county, the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, where cadmium pollution is heavy, are suspected of having the symptoms of itai-itai disease, which is characterized by pain in the joints and the spine.

The report cited statistics from the Guilin Institute of Technology showing that the level of cadmium was 1.005 milligrams in every kilogram of locally grown rice in 1986, five times the standard amount.

Zeng said the most effective way to restrict the pollution was to control industrial discharge, as the cadmium came mainly from the heavy metal industry.

(By Yang Ruoyu)

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Rice polluted by cadmium
我国10%稻米存在镉污染
About 10% of rice sold on the market contains too much cadmium, New Century Weekly reported. Nanjing Agricultural University Professor Pan Genxing and his team bought 91 samples of rice from random markets above the county level across the country. Medical studies have proved that cadmium can cause itai-itai disease after it enters human bodies.
据《新世纪》周刊报道，南京农业大学教授潘根兴和他的研究团队在全国县级以上市场随机采购大米样品91个，结果表明：10%左右的市售大米镉超标。医学研究已经证明，镉进入人体后可引起骨痛病。

*骨痛病
In the 1960s in Japan, farmland was heavily polluted by cadmium due to mining. Farmers were poisoned by cadmium after eating rice grown on the polluted land. Patients commonly felt prickled pain on their bones. They cried “itai itai” or “ouch ouch”, which explains the disease’s name.
在上世纪60年代的日本，由于开矿致使镉严重污染农田，农民长期食用污染土壤上的稻米，导致镉中毒。患者骨头有针扎般剧痛，口中常喊”痛啊痛啊”，故得此名。

*食物污染链条
Mining and other activities during China’s rapid industrialization have led to the release of hazardous heavy metals, such as cadmium, arsenic and mercury, into nature. They pollute a large part of land via water and air. Then they transfer to rice, and finally they enter human bodies.
中国快速工业化过程中的开矿等行为，使镉、砷、汞等有害重金属释放到自然界。这些有害重金属通过水流和空气，污染了中国相当大一部分土地，进而污染了稻米，再随之进入人体。

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10% of rice on Chinese market contains cadmium in excess: Survey


Chemical element cadmium, toxic to the human body, has been penetrating into rice plantations via polluted soil in recent years. And a survey showed that about 10 percent of the rice on the Chinesemarket contains excessive cadmium, said a Caing.com report Monday.

Li Wenxiang, citizen of Sidi village in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, has eaten the rice planted in his village for 28 years, and many citizens in the village, including Li, are suffering from aches in legs and feet, which can be attributed to cadmium. Papers from scholars have confirmed that the soil in the village has been polluted since 1960s.

In 2002, a survey by the Ministry of Agriculture showed that 28.4 percent of the surveyed rice is contaminated with lead, and 10.3 percent with cadmium. Also, survey done by professor Pan Genxing and his research group from the Nanjing Agricultural University in 2007 showed that about 10 percent of the rice on the market contains excessive cadmium.

Besides cadmium, other elements such as copper, zinc, lead and arsenic contaminate rice plantations across the nation.

China produces nearly 200 million tons of rice per year. Pan pointed out that the country's serious pollution situation can not fundamentally change in a short period. Chen Tongbin, researcher with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) said that now heavy metals pollute land that account for about 10 percent of the total, with land polluted by cadmium and arsenic reaching about 40 percent.

Experts said that China's current land rental system and basic situation of farmers' self-supply of rice contribute to the problem. According to Pan, in western countries, planting is made by farmers and large companies, and once the land is polluted, they may abandon it, while Chinese farmers have to bear the problem.

Also, the western countries usually ask the enterprises to pat funds for environmental protection and use the money to handle such problems, while the Chinese government lacks such measure.

In addition, much is to blame on the government, since most of the time it blocks information on pollution, leaving farmers unaware of the contamination of their land.

Also, the lack of supervision -or effective supervision- leaves the contaminated rice freely in the market.
Source: Global Times

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Rice Polluted with Heavy Metals Ending up on Market: Report

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