Soil Pollution: How China is Experiencing the Impacts
A soil test completed in 2005 revealed alarming amounts of pollution laced within the soil — nearly 20% of China’s arable land was contaminated by heavy metal (1). China is one of the leading producers and consumers of mineral resources in today’s global economy. A 2014 review released by researchers described a total of 171 varieties of mineral resources alone, including metals/metalloids like antimony, iron, lead, manganese, tin, tungsten, zinc, and coal (2). Mineral resources have acted as a key to China’s modernizing society, but despite the industries importance, the findings collected in 2005 have only continued to worsen, causing serious environmental damage.
With its constantly growing population, the amount of arable land in China is only half of the global average. After years of urbanization, industrialization, and rising consumption, the Chinese government has set 300 million acres of arable land as the minimum amount of land needed to ensure enough production (1). However, this number has been seemingly ignored. In 2012, China had 334 million acres of arable land, but this number took a nose dive and researchers now are estimating that at least 66 million of these acres are laced with dangerous chemicals that affect agricultural production (2). With this amount of polluted land, the total amount of arable land has fallen by 32 million acres below the set minimum, posing a great threat to the effort to feed today’s global population, which has drastically outpaced the rates of production. So despite the setbacks, China specifically has still been desperately working to keep up with the demand. At what cost though?
In 2013, the Food and Drug Administration of Guangzhou, China, revealed that, after completing a series of tests on Hunan rice that was a popular consumer product, 8 out of the 18 samples had traces of cadmium that exceeded national limits, this pollutant coming from the misuse of pesticides and fertilizers by farmers (5).These findings exploded in the news: there were reasoned claims that nearly half the city alone could be suffering the effects of the contamination, several people suffering from a reported number of kidney failures and cancers (5).There were accusations against the government for concealing the true extent of the unsafe soil conditions that had been the ultimate cause for the tainted rice (6).This is only one example of how the contaminants in soil are indirectly affecting the consumers. But the greatest challenge that China is still dealing with is still the stress of being able to provide enough food for the rising population.
Farmers have exhausted their resources and have stolen more from the environment than it is able to offer. Fertilizer and pesticide use have contaminated more land than what China is willing to yield (4).The soil pollution crisis is an issue that China is still facing, and it is something that all people feel the impacts from. In recent years there have been efforts taken to preserve as much clean soil as possible, for the sake of preserving arable land for food growth and for improving crop health for consumers. In an article released by Bloomberg publications, there is a quote from Tang Renjian who is a former official at the Central Rural Work Leading Group who basically that China has been working to shift from “building grain stockpiles” of rice, corn, and wheat to instead focusing on the “quality, efficiency and sustainable development” (4).By doing this, there will be more emphasis on preserving the quality of soil and less use of pollutants that directly contribute to the contamination of China’s soil. The public has witnessed a swarm of potential solutions offered up by leading researchers and government officials, but very few promise a more permanent, stable and healthy future for the population of China. People depend on these actions that will work towards repairing the soil pollution, because they depend on this food and natural landscape for development. And in our constantly developing world, the necessities make our societies’ foundations to build from.
Bibliography
Pei, M. China’s soil pollution: It’s much worse than you think http://fortune.com/2014/04/18/chinas-soil-pollution-its-much-worse-than-you-think/ (accessed Oct 29, 2018). 1
Chen, R.; Sherbinin, A. de; Ye, C.; Shi, G. China’s Soil Pollution: Farms on the Frontline http://science.sciencemag.org/content/344/6185/691.1 (accessed Oct 29, 2018). 2
The most neglected threat to public health in China is toxic soil https://www.economist.com/briefing/2017/06/08/the-most-neglected-threat-to-public-health-in-china-is-toxic-soil (accessed Oct 31, 2018). 3
Bloomberg News. https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2017-feeding-china/ (accessed Oct 30, 2018). 4
Bale, R. China’s other pollution problem — its soil https://www.revealnews.org/article-legacy/chinas-other-pollution-problem-its-soil/ (accessed Oct 30, 2018). 5
Buckley, C. Rice Tainted With Cadmium Is Discovered in Southern China https://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/22/world/asia/cadmium-tainted-rice-discovered-in-southern-china.html (accessed Oct 30, 2018). 6
