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Monday, September 3, 2012

Disturbing article - cadmium

I'm rushing a bit here, as I've work to do outside, but have just stumbled across this article on cadmium in New Zealand farmland by Mike Joy and am reeling a little from the reading. Here's the link and a brief quote. I'm intending to return to it later in the day and tease out the ramifications.

"Imagine if someone told you that over the last 70 years we had systematically contaminated large areas of New Zealand’s very best agricultural and horticultural soils with a toxic, carcinogenic heavy metal and that as a result we will be unable to grow food for human consumption on large tracts of this land from now on?

I’m guessing that you would very likely and reasonably respond with utter disbelief and anger.

It is appalling but sadly true, appalling not just that it has happened but that it continues almost unabated.

The heavy metal is cadmium and the culprit is intensive farming and horticulture and bizarrely it’s not just you who hasn’t heard of this but almost all of the farmers who own the land as well."

42 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love this intensive farming term and how it is blamed formao much. It is a bit like accusing consumers of causing cadmium problems.
I guess if you keep using the term it might eventually stick?

robertguyton said...

I haven't used it, Anonymous, it's in Mike Joy's quote (Note the use of quotation marks)- sensitive much?
I can't help but notice that you have completely avoided the content of the article - cadmium levels in our farmland. Is there a reason for that?
I'm going to be asking questions about this at Council. e've been debating the contaminated land issue recently and I was puzzled then by the exemption for production land - is this the reason?
What do you think, Anonymous?

Anonymous said...

Every 5 years cd is bought up and everyone gets excited, then it gets discussed and people get less excited.
I swear farmers must feel like guinea pigs in an oblong exercise wheel.

PS I didnt say you used the term 'intensive farming'. You extrapolated that. Sensitive much?

Shunda barunda said...

NZ is not allowed to sell sheep livers or kidneys from animals beyond a certain age because of cadmium poisoning.

I find that disturbing.

Anonymous said...

A little over the top in my view Shunda. You need to slip the word 'risk' in there. Risk of poisoning. We eat and drink cd every day in minute amounts. Doesn't mean we are poisoned.

robertguyton said...

"I guess if you keep using the term it might eventually stick?"

Ah, Anon, there's the rub!

You say cadmium gets discussed. What is you view then?

robertguyton said...

That is a disturbing revelation, Shunda. The livers of mammals, eh, collectors of cadmium.
Thank goodness humans aren't...hang on!
Anonymous will perhaps clear this up for us.

robertguyton said...

"NZ is not allowed to sell sheep livers or kidneys from animals beyond a certain age because of the risk of cadmium poisoning."

Is this true, Anonymous?

Anonymous said...

If a single liver from a single livestock animal over 18 months killed somebody, I would would have been deaded years ago.
I assume it is a bit like some of the burgers currently on the market. Eat enough and kapow.

Sally said...

A lot of shellfish accumulate cadmium from ‘natural’ sources.

They are the largest source of cadmium in most New Zealand diets.

robertguyton said...

Anonymous - you are saying that burgers should be treated the same as
sheep livers or kidneys from animals beyond a certain age, that are not allowed to be sold in NZ because of cadmium poisoning. That is, not allowed to be sold in NZ.
You and I have much in common.

robertguyton said...

"A lot of shellfish accumulate cadmium from ‘natural’ sources.

They are the largest source of cadmium in most New Zealand diets."

Only because we are protected from eating sheep livers or kidneys from animals beyond a certain age.

Anonymous said...

Nice extrapolation but no. Lots of things we eat can kill you in excess. I believe in realistic safety standards and freedom of choice.

anonymouse said...

The good news is that if you add lignite mining dust by product to soils this will bind cadmium,,
southland is indeed fortunate to have a solution to cadmium.

By the way Mr Guyton,, i dont know how you sleep at night ,,
Cooked by the climate and now poisoned by the surrounding farm land .
Not to mention exploited by a capitalist bourgeoisie political system

paulinem said...

Annoymouse the sarcasm and pathetic bleating by very deluded climate change deniers is getting very very predictable and very very boring ...yawwwwnnnnnn

Now to the real world yes Robert this report is scary very very scary ... thank you for sharing it

anonymouse said...

i think you might mean climate change realists .
and by the way the coal humates are indeed a way of binding cadmium,,
sorry i cant pander to your environmental religious indignation

Shunda barunda said...

The good news is that if you add lignite mining dust by product to soils this will bind cadmium,,
southland is indeed fortunate to have a solution to cadmium.


Yes, coal, lets solve our cadmium issues by adding mercury from lignite!!

Cures what ails ya!!

anonymouse said...


Your talking about fly ash ,, the product of burning of coal..
This is mined and not denatured as it were ,,

robertguyton said...

"Nice extrapolation but no. Lots of things we eat can kill you in excess. I believe in realistic safety standards and freedom of choice."

Tricky, you are, but not tricky enough. Sally makes the good point that "A lot of shellfish accumulate cadmium from ‘natural’ sources.
They are the largest source of cadmium in most New Zealand diets."
You are hoping that we won't notice that the overdose of cadmium that's purported to be in our soils now, was put there on purpose. That's not natural, nor, I would opine, is it responsible behaviour, if what Mike Joy says is true.
Bad, Anonymous, trying to trick us!

robertguyton said...

I've no objection to "lignite mining dust" being added to Southland soils to bind cadmium, if that in fact is what it does and there are no negative effects you haven't mentioned, anonymouse. Did you suppose that I might? If so, why?
In correcting Shunda, are you claiming that your un-processed lignite dust does not contain mercury or other contaminants that might be of concern?
Bold claim, anonymouse!

robertguyton said...

pauline, you yawn, I yawn, we all yaaaaaaaawwwwwwnnnnn!

:-)

anonymouse said...

Cadmium although it is a heavy metal is at very low levels in nz soils .
It will take a couple hundred years for it to reach the self imposed tolerable level .
So relax ,,

anonymouse said...

" yawn" that will be the effects of co2 no doubt ,
When do you think the temperature will start to increase again?

I mean the " hide the decline" emails pretty much confirmed that the warmist have got it wrong

robertguyton said...

You don't accept Mike Joy's claims then, anonymouse?

robertguyton said...

"I mean the " hide the decline" emails pretty much confirmed that the warmist have got it wrong"

You've thrown us some humour so that Pauline and I don't drop off to sleep!
You're a trooper, anonymouse!

anonymouse said...

Nothing to do with Mike Joy..
Cadmium infert has been known about for a very long time and there has been a voluntary reduction of about 50% some time ago,

The cadmium levels are relatively low at this stage and on average it will take a couple of centuries to build it further to be a problem,,

If there are significantly higher levels they must be extremely unusual and the result of some extreme p application rates .
This not some new and hither too unknown imminent disaster.

robertguyton said...

Why then anonymouse, is NZ is not allowed to sell sheep livers or kidneys from animals beyond a certain age. Is it because of the cadmium they contain. Mike Joy says that is the reason. If that is the case, that indicates that the cadmium levels in our soils are dangerously high, contrary to what you are saying.

Sally said...

Once more RG you are out of your depth.

robertguyton said...

You've shown no signs of familiarity with the issue, Sally, aside from something unconnected involving shellfish.
Why do you think the 'liver and kidney' ban exists?
Did Mike Joy make any wrong assumptions or conclusions in his article?
Are you just going to ad hom in this post, or contribute something useful. I'm at the Gore District Council tomorrow. I'll ask some one there some questions, to clarify some things I've always wanted to know.

Sally said...

Your dismissive attitude re shellfish being unconnected confirms my opinion that you are out of your depth.

On the 11 Feb 2011
http://www.mpi.govt.nz/news-resources/faqs/faqs-cadmium-in-soils-to-be-actively-managed

The Cadmium Working Group involved representatives from central and local government and primary sector industry.

Central Government: The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, the Ministry for the Environment and the New Zealand Food Safety Authority (now part of MAF).

Local Government: Environment Waikato, Environment Bay of Plenty, the Taranaki Regional Council, Greater Wellington Regional Council and Environment Canterbury.

Fertiliser industry: Ballance, Ravensdown and FertResearch

Primary Sector: Fonterra, Horticulture New Zealand, Meat and Wool NZ (now Beef + Lamb NZ), Federated farmers and the Arable Food industry Council.

The work of the CWG has now finished and responsibility has been handed over to the Cadmium Management Group, made up of representatives from the same organisations.

robertguyton said...

Thanks for the link, Sally. It's brief and typical of central Government. It doesn't mention the potential risks to human health that Mike Joy highlights, nor does it mention the 'liver and kidney' issue. I'm genuinely surprised that someone of your investigative nature was satisfied with that Ministry blurb.
Still, it does show that there is a cadmium working group. That is interesting.
So, Sally, you believe that this statement by Mike Joy is not true?

"This is especially true in intensively farmed areas like the Waikato where now more than 160,000 hectares are contaminated to the point that would have been officially labelled as a contaminated site. It can no longer be classed as contaminated because changes to legislation this year removed agricultural land from any contamination classification, an interesting way to get rid of the problem.

Fortuitously for the dairy industry cadmium doesn’t get passed to milk or we would have been banned from export markets decades ago.

Instead of going to the milk cadmium accumulates in the body like it accumulates in soil.

In mammals it accumulates in the major organs (kidneys and liver).

As a result, the sale of these organs from cattle and sheep over 18 months old are banned for human consumption in New Zealand."

robertguyton said...

Or this, Sally?

"We know very little about the health effects of long-term cadmium accumulation so the supposedly safe levels of consumption are changing globally.

However, if we use the European standard then the latest results of our 5 yearly total diet survey, horrifyingly shows that New Zealand toddlers, infants and children already eat cadmium at, or near, the limit and the rest of us are not far behind. The World Health Organisation standard is more lenient and New Zealand uses this limit so the figures look a bit better.

Of course using these more lenient guidelines might backfire if New Zealand standards are not accepted by Europe it could have potentially huge ramifications for our markets there.

There is no good news for the future either, the national cadmium report produced by government revealed that on-going cadmium accumulation in our agricultural soils has the potential to increase dietary intakes in the New Zealand population."

robertguyton said...

Sally, Mike says this of the Cadmium Working Group:

"Apart from producing a national strategy and setting up a working group dominated by industry representatives virtually nothing has changed in the four decades since cadmium accumulation was first identified as a problem.

Not surprisingly given the industry domination of the working group there is no evidence of net reduction in the rate of contamination."

I'm entirely unconvinced by your argument, in light of this report. I may be, as you so gleefully claim, 'over my head', but I can read.

Sally said...

I have not dismissed the Mike Joy article, as you imply. The link I supplied refers to a 55-page PDF report, which shows that the cadmium issue is not new.

To put some balance into your blog post, I put on a factual statement that you scoffed at. which unfortunately is not unusual of you.

Eventually you finished up in a manner I consider to be of a sinister nature and definitely not becoming of an elected member of Local Government.


robertguyton said...


I do a lot of things that conservative Councillors, current and ex, find unbecoming, Sally. It concerns me not one little bit. I've had Councillors on more than one occasion rail against my use of my blog, rail against my writing letters to the editor, rail against sending group emails to all Councillors, rail against speaking to the print media and those that televise their stories. Wait til they find out I have my own radio show! All hell will break loose!

Suz said...

Will we Wellingtonians be able to enjoy your dulcet tones?

Btw Mike Joy is my best friend's brother-in-law, awesome guy apparently.

Sally said...

Thank goodness I am conservative in nature and don’t practise green utopianism!

robertguyton said...

Don't you mean, thank God I'm conservative, Sally?
Suz - I met with Mike Joy in Auckland recently, and you are correct in your assessment of him.

robertguyton said...

"Conservative in nature"

You're one of us after all!

:-)

Sally said...

There is no way that you are conservative RG

Anonymous said...

Hmmm - RG and Colin Craig - a fine match? I think you're right Sally.

Paranormal

robertguyton said...

Conserve and nature, as you wrote, go very well with my world view, Sally. I don't like to waste, I do like to conserve, therefore, I am conservative in world-view.

Colin and I, paranormal? Do you see a marriage of ideals?
He's way too gay for me!