One fifth of China's farmland polluted

Jennifer Duggan in the Guardian (UK): A fifth of China's farmland is polluted, according to an offical report based on the results of an extensive survey. Soil pollution has long been a concern in China due to the country's rapid industrialisation and the report carried on the website of the Ministry of Environmental Protection confirms the extent of the problem. The report states that pollutants in more than 16% of Chinese soil exceeds national standards and that figure rises to 20% for arable land.

It describes the situation as "not optimistic" and said said that the quality of farmland is worrying while deserted industrial and mining land is seriously polluted. The main causes of soil pollution are industry and agriculture, according to the report. Cadmium, nickel and arsenic are the top three pollutants found.

The survey was carried out over seven years, ending in December 2013 and covered around 630 square kilometers of land across the country. According to state media, the survey took around 100,000 samples. Almost 70% of the samples were found to be "lightly polluted" with pollution levels twice the national standard. Around 7% were found to be "heavily polluted" with levels more than five times the national standard.

Most of the affected farmland lies along the eastern coast which is the most developed region and home to much of the country's heavy industry. Heavy metal pollution was particularly bad in the southwest of the country, the report found....

A farm in China, shot by Laika ac, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license