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China to Step up Fight against Agriculture Pollution
China is preparing to fight the country's worsening agricultural environment so that sustained developments in rural areas can become a reality, Vice-minister of Agriculture Zhang Baowen said in Beijing Monday.
In a symposium to mark the World Environment Day which falls on Monday, Zhang said that China has made many noteworthy achievements in safeguarding its agricultural environment, but it still has a long way to go to stop the ongoing deterioration caused by industrial pollution.
Statistics show that more than 130,000 hectares of farmland have been damaged by industrial solid waste, and over 5.3 million hectares of land are affected by air pollution.
Meanwhile, the acreage of farmland irrigated with polluted water is also growing. To date, 7.3 percent of the country's irrigated farmland was harmed by polluted water, a jump of 1.6 times over the figure in the 1980s, and 93 million hectares of farmland were polluted by pesticides.
A recent survey of agriculture markets in some provincial capital cities shows that the residue of pesticide on vegetables and fruit were above normal standard, and in some markets, the phenomena is extremely serious.
Due to over-development, large areas of the country's grassland and farmland are turning into sandy land. The acreage of desert land in China has reached 2.62 million square kilometers and is expanding at a speed of more than 2,400 square kilometers each year.
Zhang said that to prevent the agriculture environment from worsening, laws and regulations must be formulated, adding that the ministry is working with other government departments to draft the Regulations on Agriculture Environment Protection and revise the Law on Grassland.
China also will improve its monitoring system for farmland, fishing waters and grassland to prevent possible pollution, and will develop bases to produce grain and vegetables that are pollution-free, he said.
"Facts have proved that ecological agriculture is an effective way to realize a coordinated development of the environment and rural economy," he said.
He added that China is working to expand the number of its ecological agriculture counties to 300 from the current 200 by 2010, which will cover 20 million hectares of farmland.
Efforts will also be made to improve the condition of grassland, and by 2010, the acreage of improved grassland will reach 60 million hectares, accounting for 15 percent of the country's total.
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