Climate Change Will Make Rice Toxic, Say Researchers

Rice, the world's most consumed grain, will become increasingly toxic as the atmosphere heats and as carbon dioxide emissions rise, potentially putting billions of people at risk of cancers and other diseases, according to new research published this week in The Lancet. From a report: Eaten every day by billions of people and grown across the globe, rice is arguably the planet's most important staple crop, with half the world's population relying on it for the majority of its food needs, especially in developing countries.

But the way rice is grown -- mostly submerged in paddies -- and its highly porous texture mean it can absorb unusually high levels of arsenic, a potent carcinogenic toxin that is especially dangerous for babies. After growing rice in controlled fields for six years, researchers from Columbia University and international partners found that when both temperature and CO2 increased in line with climate projections, arsenic levels in rice grains rose significantly. 'When we put both of them together, then wow, that was really something we were not expecting,' said Lewis Ziska, a plant physiologist at Columbia University who led the study. 'You're looking at a crop staple that's consumed by a billion people every day, and any effect on toxicity is going to have a pretty damn large effect.'

Inorganic arsenic exposure has been linked to cancers, heart disease, and neurological problems in infants. Disease risk rose across all seven top rice-consuming Asian countries analyzed. 'This is one more reason to intervene -- to control people's exposure,' said co-author Keeve Nachman of Johns Hopkins University. 'The No. 1 thing we can do is everything in our power to slow climate change.'

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