Article: Getting cadmium out of sunflower seeds. (Agricultural Research Service's breeds sunflowers with lower cadmium uptake)

The annual $25 to $30 million U.S. sunflower kernel market in Germany might have become a thing of the past, were it not for the efforts of the Agricultural Research Service.

The agency presented evidence that convinced German authorities to set a reasonable guideline for cadmium levels in kernels.

The Germans had been considering a 0.3 pans per million (ppm) maximum allowance for kernels destined for human consumption - a standard that would have been impossible to meet with current sunflower varieties. Instead, in 1992, the Germans set the level at 0.6 ppm, which U.S. farmers can reliably meet by avoiding a handful of high-clay soils in the Red River Valley. ...

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