We Must End The Egregious Corruption That Enables Unsafe Food To Be Imported For Sale In Ghana By Selfish And Greedy Business People

Before the first Europeans landed on our shores from a shipping vessel that sailed here Portugal in 1471, we ate organic food, and did not suffer from some of the common ailments that afflict many of our people today.

As a people, if we are to reverse that unhealthy trend in 21st century Ghana, it is vital that our younger generations take an active interest in how vested interests with deep pockets continue to ensure that unsafe food from overseas is imported for sale in Ghana. It is doing untold damage to the health of millions of our people.

As an eye-opener for officialdom here, and for the benefit of our many younger generation Ghanaian readers, today, we are publishing a culled article from 'The Conversation', written by Noelle Eckley Selin and Sae Yun Kwon, entitled: "Another problem with China’s coal: Mercury in rice".

It is our humble contribution to the much-needed national conversation we ought to have about the egregious corruption that enables unsafe food to be imported into Ghana for sale to unsuspecting consumers by greedy and selfish businesspeople. Let us use the government's Planting for Food and Jobs initiative to encourage young people in rural Ghana to grow rice (and other agricultural produce such as fruits and vegetables) organically, and help make our country self-sufficient in the production rice that is safe for human consumption.

 Please read on: "The Conversation Academic rigour, journalistic flair Arts + Culture Business + Economy Education Environment + Energy Health + Medicine Politics + Society Science + Technology In French Another problem with China’s coal: Mercury in rice May 3, 2018 12.41pm SAST Mercury enters rice through local industrial activities and through burning coal. David Woo, CC BY-ND Authors Noelle Eckley Selin Associate Professor of Data, Systems, and Society and Atmospheric Chemistry, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sae Yun Kwon Assistant Professor at the Division of Environmental Science & Engineering, Pohang University of Science and Technology Disclosure statement Noelle Eckley Selin receives funding from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. The research described in this article was supported by the MIT Abdul Latif Jameel World Water and Food Security Laboratory (J-WAFS) and the MIT Leading Technology and Policy Initiative. Sae Yun Kwon receives funding from the MIT Abdul Latif Jameel World Water and Food Security Laboratory (J-WAFS) and the MIT Leading Technology and Policy Initiative. Partners The Conversation is funded by Barclays Africa and seven universities, including the Cape Peninsula University of Technology, Rhodes University and the Universities of Cape Town, Johannesburg, Kwa-Zulu Natal, Pretoria, and South Africa. It is hosted by the Universities of the Witwatersrand and Western Cape, the African Population and Health Research Centre and the Nigerian Academy of Science. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is a Strategic Partner. more Republish this article Republish Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under Creative Commons licence. Email Twitter19 Facebook35 LinkedIn Print Mercury pollution is a problem usually associated with fish consumption. Pregnant women and children in many parts of the world are advised to eat fish low in mercury to protect against the adverse health impacts, including neurological damages, posed by a particularly toxic form of mercury, methylmercury. But some people in China, the world’s largest mercury emitter, are exposed to more methylmercury from rice than they are from fish. In a recent study, we explored the extent of this problem and which direction it could go in the future. We found that China’s future emissions trajectory can have a measurable influence on the country’s rice methylmercury. This has important implications not only in China but across Asia, where coal use is increasing and rice is a staple food. It is also relevant as countries across the world implement the Minamata Convention, a global treaty to protect human health and the environment from mercury. Why is mercury a problem in rice? Measurements of methylmercury in rice in China from the early 2000s were in areas where mercury mining and other industrial activities led to high mercury levels in soil that was then taken up by rice plants. More recent research, however, has shown that methylmercury in rice is also elevated in other areas of China. This suggests that airborne mercury – emitted by sources such as coal-fired power plants and subsequently settling onto the land – might also be a factor. To better understand the process of methylmercury accumulation in rice through deposition – that is, mercury originating from the air that rains out or settles to the land – we constructed a computer model to analyze the relative importance of soil and atmospheric sources of rice methylmercury. Then we projected how future methylmercury concentrations could change under different emissions scenarios. Atmospheric mercury from burning coal and other industrial activities accumulates in fish, but not as much research has been done on the concentration in rice in China and the rest of Asia where coal use is spreading. Maxim Melnikov, CC BY-NC-ND Concentrations of methylmercury in rice are lower than those in fish, but, in central China, people eat much more rice than fish. Studies have calculated that residents in areas with mercury-contaminated soil consume more methylmercury than the U.S. EPA’s reference dose of 0.1 microgram methylmercury per kilogram of body weight per day, a level set to protect against adverse health outcomes such as decreased IQ. Recent data suggest that other neurodevelopmental impacts from methylmercury might occur at levels below the reference dose. Few health studies, however, have examined impacts of methylmercury exposure to rice consumers specifically. To identify the potential scope of the problem, we compared the areas in China where mercury deposition is expected to be high based on mercury models, with maps of rice production. We found that provinces with high mercury deposition also produce substantial amounts of rice. Seven provinces in central China (Henan, Anhui, Jiangxi, Hunan, Guizhou, Chongqing and Hubei) account for 48 percent of Chinese rice production and receive nearly double the atmospheric mercury deposition as the rest of China. We calculated that mercury deposition could increase nearly 90 percent or decrease by 60 percent by 2050, depending on future policies and technologies. Our modeling approach To understand how mercury from the atmosphere might be incorporated into rice as methylmercury, we built a model to simulate mercury in rice paddies. Methylmercury is produced in the environment by biological activity – specifically, by bacteria. Often, this occurs in flooded environments such as wetlands and sediments. Similarly, rice paddies are kept flooded during the growing season, and the nutrient-rich environment created by rice roots support both the bacterial growth and methylmercury production. Our rice paddy model simulates how mercury changes form, accumulates and converts to methylmercury in different parts of the ecosystem, including in the water, the soil and the rice plants. In our model, mercury enters the standing flooded water via deposition and irrigation processes, and then moves among water, soil and plants. After initializing and calibrating the model, we ran it for the typical five-month duration from planting seedlings to rice harvest and compared our results to measurements of mercury in rice from China. We also conducted different simulations with varying atmospheric deposition and soil mercury concentrations. Despite its simplicity, our model was able to reproduce how rice methylmercury concentrations vary across different Chinese provinces. Our model was able to accurately reflect how higher soil mercury concentrations led to higher concentrations in rice. But the soil wasn’t the whole story. Mercury from water – which can come from the flooded water in rice paddies or the water held in the soil – can also influence concentrations in rice. How much depends on the relative rates of different processes within soil and water. Under some conditions, a portion of the mercury in rice can come from the mercury in the atmosphere, once that mercury is deposited to the rice paddy. This suggested that changing emissions of mercury could potentially affect concentrations in rice. Future emissions can influence rice How will the rates of mercury in rice change in the future? We examined a high emission scenario, which assumes no new policies to control mercury emissions by 2050, and a low emission scenario, where China uses less coal and coal-fired power plants have advanced mercury emission controls. Median Chinese rice methylmercury concentrations increased by 13 percent in the high scenario and decreased by 18 percent under the low scenario. Regions where rice methylmercury declined the most under strict policy controls were in central China, where rice production is high and rice is an important source of methylmercury exposure. Managing mercury concentrations in rice thus requires an integrated approach, addressing both deposition and soil and water contamination. Understanding local conditions is also important: Other environmental factors not captured by our model, such as soil acidity, can also influence methylmercury production and accumulation to rice. Different rice production strategies can also help – for example, alternating wetting and drying cycles in rice cultivation can reduce water consumption and methane emissions as well as rice methylmercury concentrations. Our scenarios likely underestimate the potential health benefits of Minamata Convention controls in China, which is a party to the Convention. We include in our scenarios only changes in air emissions from power generation, while the Convention controls emissions from other sectors, bans mercury mining and addresses contaminated sites and land and water releases. Reducing mercury could also be beneficial for other rice-producing countries, but at present, there are few data available outside China. However, our research suggests that the problem of mercury is not just a fish story – and that policy efforts can indeed make a difference. Pollution China Coal Rice Air pollution Mercury Tweet Share Get newsletter You might also like Mercury from industrialized nations is polluting the Arctic – here’s how it gets there Are tighter EPA controls on mercury pollution worth it? The mercury level in your tuna is getting higher Are we eating too much arsenic? We need better tests to know Sign in to comment 2 Comments Oldest Newest Joshua M. Pearce Professor, Michigan Technological University Very interesting work. I wonder how much lower China’s GDP would be in the future based on your different scenarios with the variable mercury content in rice alone and the concomitant IQ reduction? If that calculation is feasible, then someone should take a hard look at what the potential liability is for coal producers for mercury pollution - and then break it down on the province scale based on the work you have already done. The greenhouse gas emissions liabilities are enormous – but I think they are far more abstract and difficult to prove –while mercury is perhaps more visceral as parents have a hand in lowering the IQs of their children because of the mercury contaminated rice they serve for dinner. 20 hours ago Report Noelle Eckley Selin Associate Professor of Data, Systems, and Society and Atmospheric Chemistry, Massachusetts Institute of Technology In reply to Joshua M. Pearce Thanks! For a variety of reasons (including data availability) it would be difficult to do for China. One could, though, do some back-of-the-envelope estimates based on the method we previously used for the US (see https://theconversation.com/are-tighter-epa-controls-on-mercury-pollution-worth-it-53551). 19 hours ago Report Most popular on The Conversation The best anthem for Workers’ Day? ‘Stimela’ – a tale about apartheid’s migrant labour system Buhari and Trump: a chance to reset Nigeria’s relationship with the US Why blaming conflicts in Africa on climate change is misguided South Africa’s print media is failing to empower citizens on corruption Lessons about history by twitter: two South Africans go head-to-head on slavery South Africa should create a fund to compensate victims of crime Scientists design a novel formula that repels and kills mosquitoes What China’s President Xi’s extended tenure means for Africa Fossil teeth reveal new facts about a mass extinction 260 million years ago Dare South Africans dream again as they celebrate their 23rd Freedom Day? 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