Heavy Metal Contamination

From a food contamination perspective, the most common heavy metals include lead (Pb), cadmium (Cd), mercury (Hg), and arsenic (As). Irrespective of the origin of the metals in the soil, excessive levels of many metals can result in soil quality degradation, crop yield reduction, and poor quality of agricultural products, posing significant hazards to human, animal, and ecosystem health. Environmentally contaminated edible agricultural products and processed foods are the potential primary sources of food contamination currently in China. This chapter lists the different anthropogenic sources of heavy metals contaminating soils annually in the world and the content of heavy metals in agricultural soils from around the world. Food safety risk monitoring should be systematic and ongoing and result in the collection of data necessary to assess food-borne disease, food contamination, and other hazard factors related to the food chain.