The Codex Alimentarius Commission sets international standards in response to the toxic compound being detected in broad instances around the world.
Rice is among the world’s leading food crops, serving as a dietary staple in developing nations. Arsenic is an environmental contaminant that occurs naturally and is taken up by plants from the water and soil when they’re growing, particularly in paddy fields irrigated with water pumped from shallow wells containing arsenic-rich sediments. The Codex Alimentarius Commission, run by the World Health Organization and the UN agency the Food and Agriculture Organization, has established limits for arsenic in rice: a maximum of 0.02 milligrammes of arsenic per kilo of polished race (the product that is traded and consumed).
