Major rice producers have world’s worst heavy metal pollution, Chinese scientists warn

Some of the world’s leading rice-producing countries are sitting on a vast belt of pollution caused by heavy metal, according to a new study that has raised urgent concerns about global food safety.

The Chinese team behind the research used machine learning to analyse hundreds of studies based on soil samples taken from around the world and concluded South and Southeast Asia’s most fertile rice regions were suffering from severe cadmium contamination.

Up to 1.4 billion people worldwide are affected by toxic heavy metal pollution and 17 per cent of arable land is contaminated, according to the study led by Hou Deyi, a professor at the School of Environment at Tsinghua University.

The findings, published in Science this week, suggest regions crucial to global food security are also hotspots for pollution linked to kidney damage, bone disorders and respiratory diseases.

Cadmium is a carcinogen and is most prevalent in the world’s major rice-producing regions, including India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, China and Thailand.

Vietnam is also a major rice exporter, but its levels of heavy metal pollution are relatively low, according to the study.

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