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December 2014 29
the past has renderedmuch of China’s farmland andwater
sources harmful to crops and, thus, harmful to humans.
Fooddemand inChina has increased due to urbanisation.
China’s steady development since opening up in 1978 has
seen the country’s agriculture sector grow in kind. A study
by theUnitedNations’ Food andAgricultural Organization
(FAO) shows that China’s agriculture sector grew by 4.5 times
between 1980 and 2011. AnHSBC report from 2014 says that
China’s agriculture industry is as large as the entire economy
of Australia.
This booming sector has causedmany suppliers to
take anymeans necessary to ensure production increases
in agricultural output, even at the cost of the environment
uponwhich it is reliant. Wen Tiejun, head of the School of
Agricultural Economics andRural Development at Renmin
University, toldReuters in 2010 that the agriculture sector is
the largest polluter inChina.
Using over 40 percent more fertiliser than necessary
for crops, the run-off is equal to about 10million tons of
fertilisermaking its way into China’s water, according to a
Greenpeace research report citing official figures. The other
major contributors towater pollution inChina come from the
industrial sector andmunicipal waste, both of which have
been active due to increasedurbanisation.
China Central Television (CCTV) ran a report about the
country’smounting garbage problem in the face of rapid
urbanisation. According to the story, roughly two-thirds of
China’s 668 cities are surrounded by landfills.
The biggest risk these growing refuse sites pose to food
safety is their potential to leak into ground-water sources.
Likewise, ChinaDaily ran a report quoting ZhongBin, the
head of the solid-waste sector at the pollution emission control
department of theMEP, as saying that, by 2015, Chinawill be
generating over 60million tons of hazardous waste.
Shanghai basedHusi FoodCo. reportedly soldexpired
beef andchicken toanumber of highprofilecompanies
includingMcdonalds, KFCandStarbucks. (Photos:CFP)
As of 2009, about 42.7 percent of China’s rivers andmore
than three-quarters of its lakes and reservoirs contained
water unsuitable for drinking or fishing, according to theMEP.
This water is, however, used for irrigation, which ultimately
contaminates the soil of the country’s arable farmland.
Heavy contamination has left roughly 20 percent of China’s
farmland unusable, according to partial findings in a research
report from2009 that theMEP revealed earlier this year. Soil
contamination has resulted inmuch of China’s grain production
having high amounts of contaminants hazardous for human
consumption—most notably, cadmium, which is ametal
element that can cause kidney and skeletal damage if ingested.
An estimate by theMinistry of Land andResources says
that heavymetal pollution contaminates about 12millionmetric
tons of Chinese grain annually. With the country’smiddle
and upper classes gaining numbers each year, these sub-
populations canmore easily affordmeat products like beef
and pork, whichmust be fed substantial amounts of grains,
contaminated or not.
At the same time, scientists at Nanjing Agricultural
University say that asmuch as 10percent of rice, a staple food
inChina, may contain cadmium.
While the contamination of lifelines to China’s food staples
like soil andwater threaten food safety, so too does the disparity
of suppliers in the country’s foodproductionmarkets, leading
to a lack of proper oversight over the years and a prevalence of
food-borne illnesses.
Medical journal The Lancet ran a story in 2013 saying that
thewidening gap betweenChina’s growing urban developments
and its rural areas has created an equally differing supply chain
in food production. As the publication put it: “Food production
inChina is dominated by ‘elephants’ and ‘mice’: sprawling,
monopolistic enterprises and tiny household producers.
