Cadmium (Cd) contamination of rice fields is a global agro‐environmental issue. Rapeseed (canola) residue organic fertilizer (RROF) as a potential strategy to minimize Cd accumulation in rice planted in acidic soil. The results showed that application of 7.5–30.0 g kg−1 RROF increased the soil pH value by 0.01–0.55 units, increased soil organic matter (OM) by 7.8–25.0%, increased soil microbial biomass carbon (MBC) and nitrogen (MBN) by 0.0–89.7% and 0.0–47.5%, respectively, and increased soil dehydrogenase (DH), acid phosphatase (ACP), and urease (UA) activities by 14.3–344.0%, 0.0–127.1%, and 3.5–14.3%, respectively. The application of RROF treatments reduced the soil acid‐extractable Cd (ACI–Cd) content by 8.1–36.4% and increased the reducible Cd (RED–Cd) and oxidizable Cd (OXI–Cd) by 1.3–36.4% and 16.2–47.9%, respectively. The path analysis demonstrated that soil OM, ACP activity, Mn, and Ca ions had a significant negative indirect effect on the decrease in soil ACI‐Cd (rOM = −0.628, rACP = −0.582, rMn = −0.627, rCa = −0.341), while Zn ions showed a strong direct effect (bZn = 0.567) and indirect positive effect (rZn = 0.580). In rice plants, the contents of Cd, Fe, K, Mg, P, and Zn in rice tissues increased, and the Cd content in rice grains decreased by 3.1–31.3% under RROF application. The results of the correlation analysis found that K and Zn in rice husks and Mg in grains were significantly and negatively correlated with the husk–grain translocation factor of Cd (r = −0.88** for Zn, r = −0.81** for K, and r = −0.59* for Mg). In addition, a significant negative correlation of root–straw translocation factors of Cd with Ca and Fe ions in the roots was observed (r = −0.63* and r = −0.60* for Ca at the filling and maturity stages of rice, r = −0.61* for Fe at the tillering stage of rice). RDA showed that the distribution fraction of soil Cd controlled the accumulation of Cd in various parts of rice, with soil ACI–Cd content explaining 22.4% of the total eigen values at a significant level, followed by 14.1% for OXI–Cd. This means that ACI–Cd was the primary factor that controlled Cd accumulation in rice grain, followed by OXI–Cd.
