Chinese pollution

Threat to Rice Fuels Latest Chinese Uproar

Guangzhou Finds High Cadmium Levels In New Scare Over Contaminated Food

WSJ,

21 May, 2013

HONG KONG—A government test indicated that nearly half the rice sold in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou was contaminated with cadmium, triggering anger from consumers that China's staple food hasn't escaped the widespread pollution tainting its air, water and soil.

Nearly half the rice samples from markets in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou contain excessive levels of dangerous cadmium, official tests found. Jean-Yves Chow, a senior industry analyst at Rabobank, talks about why the contamination will take time to clean up.

Nearly half of 18 rice samples tested in local markets during the first three months of the year contained excessive levels of cadmium, according to the Guangzhou Food and Drug Administration. A carcinogenic metal that can wreak havoc on the body's kidneys, cadmium has been found in heavy concentrations in soil in different Chinese regions, soil-pollution experts say.

Fury erupted online after the figures were published late last week on the Guangzhou body's website. The report came in the wake of other recent pollution controversies, including the discovery of rotting pig carcasses floating in Shanghai's water supply and the choking levels of air pollution Beijing experienced earlier this year.

"First water, then the air we breathe, and now the earth. How can people still survive?" wrote one user on Sina Weibo, a popular Twitter-like microblogging service. "I suppose we can always move abroad or to outer space."

Social-media criticism has been a crucial driver in the debate over pollution in China. Environmental issues have also received increasingly frank coverage in state media in a sign China's new leaders are attempting to address growing quality-of-life concerns by ordinary Chinese. Earlier this year, Beijing started to release better air-quality data after a campaign by angry social-media users.

Food safety is a particular concern, as some of the contaminants from years of industrial development make their way into the country's food from the soil in which it is grown. According to 2011 research at Nanjing Agricultural University, roughly 10% of all rice sold in China is tainted by cadmium, the result of use of industrial wastewater for irrigation, dumping of industrial waste and overapplication of fertilizer.

Heavy-metal contamination in China's soil also includes high amounts of lead and arsenic. In 2006, the country's Ministry for Environmental Protection launched a nationwide soil-pollution survey, which was to have been concluded in 2010. But earlier this year the ministry rejected requests by a Beijing lawyer to see the results, citing "state secrets."

Anger that authorities held on to data with potentially serious health consequences was exacerbated by the use of the state-secret argument—common throughout the government to justify refusing information requests. The tactic was even questioned by the flagship Communist Party newspaper the People's Daily on its Sina Weibo account, which called it "the magic phrase for rejecting disclosure."

Anger is also rising online that wealthy Chinese, including factory owners who contribute to pollution problems, can emigrate and raise their families elsewhere. "We should prevent Chinese people from emigrating overseas. If we did that, these companies wouldn't pollute so much," wrote one Weibo user on Monday. Users also circulated cartoon rice bowls featuring embedded skeleton heads.

Some analysts say the government refuses to release data on soil pollution in part because of fears it could unleash social instability. An accurate picture of soil pollution could endanger the livelihoods of farmers by encouraging consumer boycotts of food produced in contaminated areas. It could strengthen the voice of protesters and activists fighting to close down polluting factories and lead to massive compensation claims by residents in areas where the soil has been poisoned by industrial waste.

China faces an immense task to feed its population as breakneck industrial development has eaten into the country's supply of arable land. An honest assessment of soil quality would put further pressure on food supplies, and challenge the government's policy of food self-sufficiency, which it believes is a strategic imperative.

In response to the Guangzhou rice scandal, the People's Daily this week advised people to "diversify" their diets so that they weren't eating produce from just one region. That way, the degree of risk from consumption would be minimized, the paper said.

According to the Guangzhou authorities, the contaminated samples were found to have 0.21 milligram to 0.4 milligram of cadmium in each kilogram of rice. The Chinese government allows a maximum 0.2 mg of cadmium in each kilogram of rice.

The rice was mainly imported from nearby Hunan, a province that is traditionally known as the "land of fish and rice," thanks to its bountiful produce. All the rice was produced at small-scale mills of the kind common in China's agricultural sector, which remains extremely localized and composed of smaller operations, making it difficult to regulate standards. Over the weekend, Guangzhou authorities said the sample size was small, and not necessarily representative of all rice being sold in the city.

It was also unclear how the report compares to previous findings in Guangzhou.

China has been a net rice importer for several years, but sends some amounts of rice elsewhere, including to the U.S. and Hong Kong. U.S. researchers have found rice from China contain high concentrations of lead, according to the American Chemical Society.

Authorities in Guangzhou—southern China's largest city—initially refused to disclose the name of the rice producers, triggering even more of a backlash. The government succumbed to the pressure and released the names of the mostly small mills over the weekend. The rice producers included Daban Rice Factory, as well as Xiasheng Rice Factory, Rixing Rice Mill and Dongyang Rice Mill. None of the Hunan mill operators could be reached for comment. An employee at one additionally named Guangdong producer, Daojiao Jinying Rice Product Factory, based in the city of Dongguan, said he was unaware of the issue.

The government said it had forbidden the use of the rice, "adopted control measures" and will continue surveillance and random sampling of rice in the city.

Cadmium is frequently found in leafy vegetables such as spinach and choi sum grown in polluted conditions. For cadmium to be evident in rice grains as well, the soil in which it was grown must have been especially highly polluted, said Jonathan Wong, a Hong Kong biology professor who has studied mainland soil pollution extensively.

In Japan during the late 1960s, an outbreak of itai-itai disease, or "ouch, ouch" disease, was traced back to cadmium after it poisoned people and softened their bones.

Experts say removing cadmium from the soil is a costly process that would likely require seeding certain plants for long periods to help remove toxicity. The metal doesn't degrade on its own, and can linger in the human body for decades.

Local and national food-safety regulators didn't return requests for comment.