China's agriculture taking toll on environment   (Xinhua)  Updated: 2006-07-04 22:51  
China is being warned that it faces further environmental degradation from 
the overuse of chemical fertilizers, a bitter fruit its people are literally 
being forced to swallow, says a leading Chinese expert on the ecology. 
 It's the result of the country's long-boasted miracle of being able to feed 
22 percent of the world's population with only seven percent of the world's 
arable land, said Gao Jixi, director of the Ecology Institute with the Chinese 
Research Academy of Environmental Sciences. 
 "It costs us dearly. Intensive use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides 
have led to severe soil, water and air pollution," he said. 
 Gao offered a grim list of agricultural side effects at a forum being 
sponsored by "Sino-Italian Green Week". "More greenhouse gases are being 
produced. Accumulating heavy metals are hardening the soil and reducing its 
fertility. Surface water is over-enriched with nutrients and groundwater is 
polluted by nitrates," he said. 
 Chinese farmers use 41.24 million tons of chemical fertilizers every year, 
for an average of more than 400 kg per hectare of farmland, far above the safe 
limit of 225 kg per hectare in developed countries, said Gao. 
 "Only 40 percent of nitrogen fertilizers, a heavily used chemical fertilizer 
in China, is being applied efficiently. Almost half of it evaporates or runs off 
before being absorbed by crops, causing water, soil and air pollution," Gao 
said. 
 Statistics show that from 1985 to 2000, China saw 141 million tons, or nine 
million tons per year, of nitrogen fertilizers washed away and turned into 
pollutants. 
 About 75 percent of the country's lakes and 50 percent of groundwater are 
polluted.
 
  
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