07-25-2013, 12:51 PM
One m ore thing *(:>*
About chinese Rice . . . .
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/...al-economy
Editor's note: Of the world's 50,000 edible plant species, only a few hundred find their way to menus around the globe. Of those, just three — rice, wheat and maize — make up two-thirds of the human food supply. And only rice is responsible for feeding half the world, or more than 3.5 billion people.
In other words, rice is important. So important, in fact, that a tweak to the way rice is grown, sold or eaten can send ripples through the world economy. Earlier this year, government subsidies for rice in Thailand, where 30 percent of the world's crop originates, did just that. Prices everywhere shot up, though it looks like any looming instability has been offset by other exporters, namely India, steadying the market.
Still, the point is rice in one place affects millions. In Indonesia, Suharto coaxed a people into growing the grain and changed a culture. In India, the genetically modified golden rice could save millions of lives and, yet, may never get into the ground. Rice 2.0 is GlobalPost's look at a tiny grain with a giant footprint.
BEIJING, China — Xu Limin goes out of her way to make sure the rice she buys wasn’t grown in southern China.
“I’m not too picky about every single food item, but rice is the most important thing, so I want the cleanest,” said Xu, a 28-year-old office worker in Beijing, chatting as she shopped for groceries in an organic supermarket.
“Everyone knows rice from the south might be contaminated so I want rice from the north, or even something imported.”
On a scale of China’s food safety issues, pollution-tainted rice might just be the biggest problem of all. Rice is the country’s national staple, a grain deeply intertwined with history, culture and all things Chinese.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424...45772.html
REVIEW & OUTLOOKMay 22, 2013, 12:47 p.m. ET
China's Toxic Rice Bowl
Elections are the only antidote for cadmium rice and other environmental horrors.
REVIEW & OUTLOOKMay 22, 2013, 12:47 p.m. ET
China's Toxic Rice Bowl
Elections are the only antidote for cadmium rice and other environmental horrors.
In January 2012, an estimated 20 tons of cadmium was dumped in the Longjiang River in Guangxi, wiping out fish farms along the waterway. After a five-day cover-up, tap water was turned off for more than three million residents of Liuzhou city. The authorities found seven different companies were discharging heavy metals; cadres from two were punished, but the main culprit wasn't identified.
http://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/to...40034.html
Toxic Rice Highlights China's Lack of Openness on Pollution
2013-05-24
Illegally high levels of poisonous heavy metals found in rice grown in southern China have highlighted a lack of openness among officials charged with environmental protection and food safety, activists said this week.
Authorities in the southern province of Guangdong took the unprecedented step last week of naming rice producers whose products contained "excessive amounts" of cadmium, amid growing public pressure for transparency over the scandal.
Of 18 batches of rice tested during quarterly spot-checks, eight were found to contain excessive amounts of the carcinogenic heavy metal, the Global Times newspaper reported on Tuesday.
Samples of the tainted rice were taken from two college canteens and two other restaurants in the provincial capital, Guangzhou, and revealed readings of between 0.21 and 0.4 milligrams of cadmium per kilogram, in excess of a national limit of 0.2 milligrams, the paper said.
However, expert studies revealed as early as 2011 excessive cadmium levels in around 10 percent of rice sold across China.
Sichuan-based environmental activist Yang Yong said the rice had likely been contaminated by the water used to irrigate the rice paddies in which it is grown.
"Heavy metals can be found in water and in soil, and can be transferred into food," Yang said. "This can have a huge impact as it accumulates in the human body."
Causes sought
According to Xue Shikiu, a water resources management expert at the University of Florida, there are three main sources of heavy metal contamination of crops.
"The first is from natural minerals which permeate into the water supply through weathering," Xue said. "The second is from industrial pollution, and the third is pollution from various sources during agricultural production."
Some media reports focused on recent investigations in Hunan, which also revealed higher-than-permitted levels of heavy metals in rice grown near the Dongting Lake.
Experts told local media that local farmers' fertilization of the fields could be a factor.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22099990
10 April 2013 Last updated at 23:23 GMT
US rice imports 'contain harmful levels of lead'
By Jason Palmer
Science and technology reporter, BBC News, New Orleans
Analysis of commercially available rice imported into the US has revealed it contains levels of lead far higher than regulations suggest are safe.
Some samples exceeded the "provisional total tolerable intake" (PTTI) set by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) by a factor of 120.
About chinese Rice . . . .
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/...al-economy
Editor's note: Of the world's 50,000 edible plant species, only a few hundred find their way to menus around the globe. Of those, just three — rice, wheat and maize — make up two-thirds of the human food supply. And only rice is responsible for feeding half the world, or more than 3.5 billion people.
In other words, rice is important. So important, in fact, that a tweak to the way rice is grown, sold or eaten can send ripples through the world economy. Earlier this year, government subsidies for rice in Thailand, where 30 percent of the world's crop originates, did just that. Prices everywhere shot up, though it looks like any looming instability has been offset by other exporters, namely India, steadying the market.
Still, the point is rice in one place affects millions. In Indonesia, Suharto coaxed a people into growing the grain and changed a culture. In India, the genetically modified golden rice could save millions of lives and, yet, may never get into the ground. Rice 2.0 is GlobalPost's look at a tiny grain with a giant footprint.
BEIJING, China — Xu Limin goes out of her way to make sure the rice she buys wasn’t grown in southern China.
“I’m not too picky about every single food item, but rice is the most important thing, so I want the cleanest,” said Xu, a 28-year-old office worker in Beijing, chatting as she shopped for groceries in an organic supermarket.
“Everyone knows rice from the south might be contaminated so I want rice from the north, or even something imported.”
On a scale of China’s food safety issues, pollution-tainted rice might just be the biggest problem of all. Rice is the country’s national staple, a grain deeply intertwined with history, culture and all things Chinese.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424...45772.html
REVIEW & OUTLOOKMay 22, 2013, 12:47 p.m. ET
China's Toxic Rice Bowl
Elections are the only antidote for cadmium rice and other environmental horrors.
REVIEW & OUTLOOKMay 22, 2013, 12:47 p.m. ET
China's Toxic Rice Bowl
Elections are the only antidote for cadmium rice and other environmental horrors.
In January 2012, an estimated 20 tons of cadmium was dumped in the Longjiang River in Guangxi, wiping out fish farms along the waterway. After a five-day cover-up, tap water was turned off for more than three million residents of Liuzhou city. The authorities found seven different companies were discharging heavy metals; cadres from two were punished, but the main culprit wasn't identified.
http://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/to...40034.html
Toxic Rice Highlights China's Lack of Openness on Pollution
2013-05-24
Illegally high levels of poisonous heavy metals found in rice grown in southern China have highlighted a lack of openness among officials charged with environmental protection and food safety, activists said this week.
Authorities in the southern province of Guangdong took the unprecedented step last week of naming rice producers whose products contained "excessive amounts" of cadmium, amid growing public pressure for transparency over the scandal.
Of 18 batches of rice tested during quarterly spot-checks, eight were found to contain excessive amounts of the carcinogenic heavy metal, the Global Times newspaper reported on Tuesday.
Samples of the tainted rice were taken from two college canteens and two other restaurants in the provincial capital, Guangzhou, and revealed readings of between 0.21 and 0.4 milligrams of cadmium per kilogram, in excess of a national limit of 0.2 milligrams, the paper said.
However, expert studies revealed as early as 2011 excessive cadmium levels in around 10 percent of rice sold across China.
Sichuan-based environmental activist Yang Yong said the rice had likely been contaminated by the water used to irrigate the rice paddies in which it is grown.
"Heavy metals can be found in water and in soil, and can be transferred into food," Yang said. "This can have a huge impact as it accumulates in the human body."
Causes sought
According to Xue Shikiu, a water resources management expert at the University of Florida, there are three main sources of heavy metal contamination of crops.
"The first is from natural minerals which permeate into the water supply through weathering," Xue said. "The second is from industrial pollution, and the third is pollution from various sources during agricultural production."
Some media reports focused on recent investigations in Hunan, which also revealed higher-than-permitted levels of heavy metals in rice grown near the Dongting Lake.
Experts told local media that local farmers' fertilization of the fields could be a factor.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22099990
10 April 2013 Last updated at 23:23 GMT
US rice imports 'contain harmful levels of lead'
By Jason Palmer
Science and technology reporter, BBC News, New Orleans
Analysis of commercially available rice imported into the US has revealed it contains levels of lead far higher than regulations suggest are safe.
Some samples exceeded the "provisional total tolerable intake" (PTTI) set by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) by a factor of 120.