How to Treat Heavy Metals in Agricultural Products

Heavy metals generally refer to metals having a relative density of 5 or more. Heavy metals include about 45 elements such as gold, silver, copper, mercury, cadmium, and chromium. As a result of similar chemical properties, arsenic is also often classified as a heavy metal.

Heavy metal substances are not all toxic, such as manganese, copper, zinc, etc. are essential trace elements of life activities, only after excessive consumption will harm human health. At present, there are five types of heavy metals that are recognized as having relatively high impact and high toxicity, namely mercury, cadmium, lead, chromium, and arsenic. After these poisonous heavy metal substances enter the human body, they are not easily discharged or decomposed, and when they reach a certain concentration, they will endanger human health.

The cause of excessive heavy metal content in agricultural products is mainly the pollution of the planting environment. The environmental protection measures of industrial and mining enterprises in some regions are not in place, and long-term large-scale discharge of pollutants has seriously overloaded the soil with heavy metals. In agricultural products grown on this soil, there may be excessive levels of heavy metals.

Understanding the level of heavy metal pollution in agricultural products requires specific analysis. Sometimes heavy metals in the soil are exceeded, but the crops do not exceed the standard, because heavy metal elements are relatively stable in the environment, difficult to degrade and have poor migration ability. The migration of different heavy metals to crops is not the same. At the same time, the migration of heavy metals to crops is also affected by the nature of the soil. For example, in acidic soils, the activity of heavy metals will increase and the conversion rate of crops will increase. Therefore, the soil in the south has a higher probability of causing product contamination than the north.

Therefore, it is not that the higher the content of heavy metals in the environment, the higher the degree of heavy metal pollution in agricultural products, and there is no inevitable correlation between them.