Confronting China's Cadmium-Laced Rice Crisis

Seller's stalls are empty and aisles have fallen silent at one of China's largest wholesale markets for rice, the Lianxi Rice Market in the city of Yiyang, north-central Hunan Province.

Business at the market – traditionally a trading center for about 20 percent of all rice grown in Hunan – has come to a standstill in the face of a heavy-metal contamination scare.