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China’s Toxic Grain
By AngryToxicologist | April 30, 2007
China’s insane growth is really catching up with it and the hangover is not going to be pretty. Last week the Chinese state media reported that 10% of Chinese farmland is too toxic to farm, mainly due to fertilizer over-use, polluted water, and heavy metals. According to the news release, heavy metals alone contaminate 12 million tons of grain each year!! No word on how much never gets tested at all. There’s no sign of the pollution slowing anytime soon, either; the Chinese are too caught up in their new-found wealth and international status to be able to effectively check the pollution in the near term. Let’s all hope for the Chinese and the world’s sake that The Party can get a hold of itself and realize it’s poisoning itself. That will take comprehensive measures, they haven’t shown interest in tackling substantively. Asthma continues to rise, even after 40% increases over 5 years due to still-worsening air quality. So in the interest of global health, from the Angry Toxicologist to the ruling Chinese: STOP POISONING YOUR OWN PEOPLE!
Not that I take the pollution lightly but I’m trying to figure out China’s alarm over this considering their laissez faire attitude they take towards other pollution. China has always bragged about how they feed 22% of the world with 7-9% of their arable land. So how does this square with their concerns? Even with the 300,000+ hectacre lost annually, I don’t get it. Is a larger percentage of the non-farmed, arable land contaminated? Are there other reasons why the non-farmed arable land can’t easily be farmed? Is the non-farmed arable land useful only for different crops and therefore non-exchangeable? Any ag-nuts want to help me out?
Send any interesting Chinese environmental news and bets as to when China gets its first river fire to tox@angrytoxicologist.com.
May 1st, 2007 at 9:02 pm
Gotta figure much of the environmental bad news in China goes unpublished, so I always assume it’s worse than what does get out. Having been recently introduced to Lester Brown and his writing on food production, water shortages, etc I find what you report less shocking that I would otherwise — but still shocking!
A couple of tipping points are interesting. One would be the point at which the environment in China really deteriorates. The other is the point at which governments and business leaders start to take intelligent action regarding agricultural practices.
For levity (okay, not really) I created the The Sustainability Game to help people pick the strategy they want to use going forward.
May 2nd, 2007 at 9:24 pm
I wonder how close we are to that tipping point. 10% of unusable farmland is huge, but that’s why I’m curious as to what’s going on with the all the non-farmed arable land. The thing is 10% is awful, but if you’re talking pure survival, we can handle that, and therein lies the problem; no one knows where the breaking point is (probably differs depending on what you deem acceptable), but we’re willing to keep pushing until we’ve crossed it.
May 4th, 2007 at 2:36 am
Yeah, at one extreme are the people who’ve concluded doomsday is unavoidable, at the other we have folks who are oblivious to any problems. The rest of us are fighting to swing the pendulum in a positive direction. From what I read, there are plenty of people in China well-aware of their environmental problems, but just like here in the States they have to deal with a government full of varying factions and an abiding desire for strong economic growth.
Whew! No telling what will happen, but we have to keep pushing for sanity.