A Reuters report this week noted that nearly 3.33 million hectares (eight million acres) of Chinese farmland are too polluted to grow crops. The article, which was re-posted by the state-run China Daily news site, quoted Wang Shiyuan, China’s vice minister of land and resources. Wang says that the government is determined to address the issue of polluted farmland, and will commit “tens of billions of yuan” each year to help return the land to a usable state.
Food security is a major concern for Chinese leaders, and worries over this issue already had the potential to severely slow down other planned reforms such as urbanization. The announcement on China’s pollution levels further complicates the balance of preserving farmland and speeding up urbanization. Wang Shiyuan noted that the amount of polluted land represents nearly 2 percent of the country’s arable land, which is not something the Chinese government can ignore. China’s per capita arable land area is already less than half of the world average — the country simply can’t afford to lose any more land to pollution.
China’s government wants to ensure enough arable land is left reserved for farming, and the large swath of polluted fields cuts into that amount. Xinhua reports that China’s arable land survey counted about 135.4 million hectares (334.6 million acres) of farmland — but after removing from that count land reserved for “forest and pasture restoration” as well as land too polluted for crop-growing, the “actual available arable land was just slightly above the government’s red-line” of preserving 120 million hectares (296 million acres) of usable farm land. In other words, pollution is presenting a dangerous threat to one of the government’s highest priorities.
This presents a tough choice for Chinese leaders: let the land lie farrow and risk disrupting food supplies, or allow crops to be grown on tainted soil. Wang’s remarks show the government is leaning towards the former. Tainted crops have already caused scares among China’s citizens. A report by Guangzhou in May found that nearly half the rice in the cities’ restaurants had excessive levels of the heavy metal cadmium. The city’s residents were outraged when the report was published. The rice in Guangzhou was linked to polluted plots in Hunan province, which produces 11 percent of China’s total rice each year. Caixin published an article arguing that cover-ups by both local and provincial governments allowed the problem to spread before it exploded into the public consciousness in late spring 2013.
In a way, Wang’s public report could actually be good news for environmental advocates. For one, it shows that the central government is taking the problem seriously, and might be taking steps to increase transparency in the tracking and reporting of soil and water pollution. Even more importantly, food security is a non-negotiable for China’s government and pollution becoming a serious impediment to ensuring a steady supply of crops. Now China’s leaders will be more willing to make the hard choices necessary to clean up the land and water pollution in China’s rural areas. This might mean setting strict new pollution limits for businesses, or even closing down factories that operate close to farmland.
Unfortunately, however, the food security crisis could also negatively impact the environment. Chinadialogue reported back in November that the government was letting reforestation subsidies (money paid to farmers who plant trees on their land) expire over food security concerns. Wang’s remarks seem to promise that some land is being kept in reserve for reforestation and the creation of pasture land. If China’s arable land continues to creep down towards the “red line,” it will be very tempting for the government to reclaim this land for agriculture — which Chinadialogue argues will speed up desertification, putting China at risk in other ways.
Plenty of arable land for cereal cultivation right next door in Russia.
and Japan doesn't need that much because their population is shrinking and Cambodja en Laos don't use their land because it has all those trees on the land they could use as farmland.
Sure, but the Russians are fellow commies...share and share alike!
I'm pretty sure that we are now fellow commies too....or damn close.
I wish! At least we would finally KNOW what the FK we are! But I'm really thinking we're more of a 'rule by aristocracy' really.
But what are they going to water their crops with, water pollution is the major issue over there and it is much more than 2% of the rivers/water supply that is not safe at this point.
Brawndo. It's got what plants crave.
Pollution: It's got electrolytes!
Pollution: It's what's for dinner...
Got Pollution?
If you like your pollution, you can keep your pollution.
And if you don't like your pollution ... you can still keep your pollution.
No, America is definitely now a fascist nation. China and Russia are moving toward fascism.
True, my point is there is no significant difference between us and them.
If I see "Product of China" on a food -- mushrooms, fish, canned fruit, etc., I will not buy it.
If I see 'made in USA' etc, I will not believe it.
I trust my Sig M400 is made in NH, the Magpul furniture is made in CO and the Lake City brass is made in MO.
Just raise the polution standard and say it's all okey dokey now. Forbid reporters to go near the worst spots. Problem solved.
Hope those floating pig carcases didn't go to waste? Off topic -- WTF is spam anyway?
Agreed. China is the only country more corrupt than the USA. But...most of our food is OK...especially what I grow. My chickens are happy and healthy. They have cable tv.
I am a chef that serves over 10,000 meals per week to sick and homeless. The ordering of product to serve all of these meals is done by a person that is under pressure to keep a low food cost. Almost all of the vegetables, and fruit that I have to use comes from China. When did the United States stop producing apples and broccoli? These products are bought from U.S companies (Sysco, U.S Foods). Check your labels in your grocery stores, a lot of the fruit and vegs you're family is eating has Chinese piss and shit on it. The dead hogs in the river story did it for me.
Mongolia is a softer target.
That's for sure! Less people than Arkansas (and probably fewer weapons) and a GDP smaller than Kohl's. Ellison or someone could buy this country. It's huge - but resources must be pretty poor. Even Russia didn't want it.
I've read extensively on the idea that the 'Mongols' did not come from what we today term Mongolia. More likely they came from the areas we would now call Ukraine, south & western Russia, as well as Anatolia/Asia Minor/Turkey.
The weaponry and tactics of the Cossacks and Mongols are amazingly similar.
Darteaus; look also to Burma, VN and Laos to become the PRC rice basket. Better climate. Burma is pristine. Because it was and still is a totalitarian state, it was untouched by progress and is pristine. A funny irony.
The environmental condition of the land mass of the PRC and what is happening to the health of the people who breathe its air, drink its water and eat its produce, is appalling. The PRC blockades and lies and many many will go down with cancers and God knows what else.
I have spent enough time over there to tell you, if I have to go back it will be a visit timed to the hour and I will bring with me an armory of supplements sufficient to stop a cold in a full-grown bull elephant. I will not spend an hour longer than I need to. It is that toxic.
Are you sure that isn't a map of fallout from Fukushima?
If the food you eat doesn't give that burning feeling it's not food!!
suddenly reminded me of the old Anthony Quinn film "The Shoes of the Fisherman"
"let the land lie farrow"
Very funny. I think you mean "fallow." But put a fake oriental accent on it and, voila!- farrow!.
I'm guessing Shannon doesn't make it out to the sticks very often. One of them there glass tower agricultural experts.
Maybe he means Mia Farrow should take a dirt nap.
China will buy farmland in the USA and take it over in Africa. My guess is they will try to take land in America eventually.
Could be turning it into hog farms?
Politics is intimately about food. Same as it every was.
Spot on! Google the documentation about the rise in food prices and middle east "Democratic Rebellions" (and you'll see that these mini-revolutions had nothing to do with 'politics' per se - and everything to do with feeding your family).
21th CENTURY WILL GIVE A TOTALLY DIFFERENT MEANING TO "LEBENSRAUM"!
Drang nach Westen!
Or how ever this is said in Chinese language.
"Blobbing-Up"
Warz!
The pollution is troublesome, but the tainted Donkey Meat at Walmart might also prove worrisome.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/01/02/us-walmart-china-idUSBREA0103O...
they say Fox meat is More expensive than Donkey.. they are wasting profits...
Did the donkey come from Tijuana?
If so, they might also wish to test the meat for HIV.....
Of course, if the land lies fallow, all that cadmium turns into vitamin C within 10 years!
What's the problem here?
Only when countries start getting wealthy do they start to care about the environment.
Only when a few people become wealthy by destroying the environment do the people in those countries start to care about the environment (because before that they didn't have to).
Tragedy of the Commons, writ large.
Cadmium poisoning was known in Japan as the 'it hurts-it hurts' disease. The Cadmium mostly comes from mining operations and it gets into the water supply eventually. Irrigating rice with Cadmium contaminated water eventually stops working as the Cadmium level rises. Nasty stuff.
This would be a good time for the Chinese to use transparency/information for the public to set pollution guidelines.
Sadly, they will instead use command-and-control and information restrictions, to preserve the interests of the status quo.
Much like the US.
You seem to be missing the fact that the world is run by the mafia.
The idea that they even could do this is far more laughable than the idea that they would.
So, in light of this, why do you insist upon covering up these crimes by playing along with the facade?
Lemme guess...
Voter?
Time to put the Soylent Green on the Wal Mart shelves.
Maybe infinite growth on a planet with 7 billion people isn't such a good idea after all.
I don't know, Doctor. Based on this, it seems that the population will self-regulate growth both through the destruction of arable land and the ensuing wars that follow. No worries for the planet, actually.
"The Planet is Fine.The People are Fucked." - George Carlin
I agree with you there. Population reduction in one form or another, or possibly multiple forms, is inevitable. Nature has a way of balancing out the distortions.
DOC E Does nature ever cut the population of banksters? This is the work of the AGENDA 21 depopulation elites...period. They have the technology to manufacture without all the pollution, this is by design.
Nature doesn't care. And there is nothing anyone can do to make it care.
Bankers don't seem to care either. However, they can be made to care. That would be the job for the population.
I thought it was 'unfettered' Capitialism that laid waste to the environment. How could this happen in a Socialist Paradise?
Are you trying to impugn Chairman Mao's "achievements" !?!
The Great Leap Forward Into Toxic Metal Blobbing-Up!
Chickity China the Chinese chicken
You have a drumstick and your brain stops tickin'
What food security? My wife says I'm a bigger jackass than usual since she started buying meat at Walmart, but I think I'm more of a fox than ever. I don't feel so good, better go lay down....might be something I ate.
You are what you eat, it seems.
Thailand and Vietnam both export rice. I'd think they're nervous
no problem
harvest the dead pigs floating down the river and everything gets solved
Wow - so they only have 2,360 million acres left. Guess that's why they 'manned up' over the last few years. They're going to come over and steal our land AND our women!
Shuanghui International Holdings Ltd recently purchased a meat processesing plant here in the U.S. and I think that's why Krogers has this new line of pork - straight from the river no doubt.
BTW, every lightpole in my neighborhood looks like a chinese menu: Reward: lost cat; Reward: Lost dog & Reward; lost rat. mmmmmm
So, is cat red meat, or white meat? If we come upon hard times, is the slogan going to be "Cat: The other red meat" or will it be "Cat: The other other white meat?"
And I can often tell when somebody new moves into the area. There'll be a "Missing cat" posting on the message board. With a few exceptions, cats here are either indoor cats, or they are coyote food.
Cat's? We need to keep them ALIVE - remember the black plague? It's dogs we'll be eating - well - except the big ones - they are protection.
Plenty of terriers eat rodents, too.
bollox
if you really believe any testing is going on now you are smokin crack.
they want you dead fuckers.
gmo,nitrates,pesticides,strontium,barium,cesium.
you men have turned into girlies from the hormone disrupters.
eat drink and be mary before you die suckers.
"you men have turned into girlies from the hormone disrupters."
No more positive male role models allowed. We ARE allowed to look up to the experts, and also dumb as rocks celebrities and athletes, though, so that makes up for it.
"they want you dead fuckers"
I have to agree it's an engineered depopulation.
Better to eat, drink, and DO Mary.
Ya,going into every grocery store and buying garlic along with all kinds of other food products coming from China.Your corrupt state and federal governments says it's OK to eat because a Communist Chinese Government owns the U.S. debt.Very retarded Government in the United States with millions of unemployed yet allow this crap to be consumed daily poisoning everyone.Hopefully it gets to put Washington politicians in the hospital,it'll serve them right.
You don't seriously think that any politician eats stuff from China, do you? They know better.
If they've got enough money they eat organic.
And if they have lots of money they have land, gardeners and grow their own.
""you men have turned into girlies from the hormone disrupters."
Yea, but the upside is I get to fondle my own new set of tits. Silver lining and all that..... Stop being so negative. I'm now my own cheap date.
Again, who cares about food when there is money/justice to be printed?
Bankrupt nanny-Corporations don't need food, they need illicit gains.
DOWN WITH FOOD!
And we are stupid enough to allow importation of food from China....never eat anything that comes from China....that includes kids toys....poison is all it is
stopped eating any kind of food from China a long time ago, anybody buy any mandarin oranges this year?
I continue to drink green tea (my beverage of choice) with mixed feelings.
Try Darjeeling tea.
I would not be surprised if the Chinese tried to grow something on this polluted land, but the crop was condemned within China for human consumption. So what would a farmer do with his condemned crop? Why sell it to a pet food company for export to the US. That might explain the problems the US has seen with toxic pet food and pet treats from China...
What an absolutely useless article. Lots of words, with repetition, saying very little!
What percentage of arable land is polluted?
What is it polluted with? Salt buildup from using cheap, old-fashioned fertilizers makes the land unusable. Is that included in the "polluted land"? Is the pollution due to irrigating with polluted water?