Even At 10X Price, Japanese Rice Increasingly Popular In China; Less Cadmium And Lead And Such [View all]

[hatrack]

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Pollution from industrialisation has exacted a heavy toll on China's soil and water. In May 2013, officials in Guangdong province in southern China said 44 percent of rice samples contained excessive levels of the metal cadmium.

A study by the Ministry of Environmental Protection last April estimated that 16.1 percent of China's soil was contaminated. In parts of the country, soil pollution is so bad that some rice farmers refuse to eat what they grow. After the cadmium revelations, some Chinese consumers began to see rice from Thailand as an affordable and safe substitute.

In contrast, Japanese rice is neither cheap nor easy to find in China. Japanese rice imported by Chinese grain trader COFCO sells for 74 Chinese yuan ($12) a kg on PinStore, an online supermarket run by Japanese trading house Sumitomo Corp . Domestic rice sells there for as little as 7.5 yuan per kg.

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To meet demand, some Chinese producers now say they use Japanese seeds and promote their rice as a safer alternative to purely domestic strains. Zhejiang Xinxie Yueguang Agricultural Science and Technology says its Echizen brand rice is safe and grown with "water from pure sources and strict quality control". The packaging says the rice is a Japanese variety. But Echizen rice is grown in Changxing county, a hub of lead-acid battery production in eastern Zhejiang province. Battery production can be highly polluting.

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http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/25/china-japan-rice-idUSL3N0UV2SI20150125