Mihlali Badiwe

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1 INTRODUCTION The emergence of global industrialisation and urbanisation, coupled with various anthropogenic activities such as modern agricultural and farm management practices, is the leading cause of environmental and human health deterioration (Kuddus et al., 2020; Rai et al., 2019; Thakur et al., 2022). This is due to their major contribution of excess metals, especially heavy metals (HMs), to soil, water, and air environments (Rai et al., 2019; Thakur et al., 2022).