Resources for a sustainable future

10/2/2010 Guardian Overuse of fertilisers and pesticides has sent agricultural pollution through the roof.Farmers’ fields are a bigger source of water contamination in China than factory
effluent, the Chinese government revealed today in its first census on
pollution.
Senior officials said the disclosure, after a two-year study involving 570,000
people, would require a partial realignment of environmental policy from smoke
stacks to chicken coops, cow sheds and fruit orchards.
Despite the sharp upward revision of figures on rural contamination, the
government suggested the country’s pollution problem may be close to – or even
past – a peak. That claim is likely to prompt scepticism among environmental
groups.
The release of the groundbreaking report was reportedly delayed by resistance
from the agriculture ministry, which had previously insisted that farms
contributed only a tiny fraction of pollution in China.
The census disproves these claims completely. According to the study,
agriculture is responsible for 43.7% of the nation’s chemical oxygen demand (the
main measure of organic compounds in water), 67% of phosphorus and 57% of
nitrogen discharges.
At the launch of the paper, Wang Yangliang of the ministry of agriculture
recognised the fall-out from intensive farming methods.
“Fertilisers and pesticides have played an important role in enhancing
productivity but in certain areas improper use has had a grave impact on the
environment,” he said. “The fast development of livestock breeding and
aquaculture has produced a lot of food but they are also major sources of
pollution in our lives.”
He said the ministry would introduce measures to improve the efficiency of
pesticide and fertiliser use, to expand biogas generation from animal waste, and
to change agricultural lifestyles to protect the environment.
While the high figure for rural pollution is partly explained by the immense
size of China’s agricultural sector, it also reflects the country’s massive
dependency on artificial farm inputs such as fertilisers.
The government says this is necessary because China uses only 7% of the world’s
land to feed 22% of the global population. An industrial lobby is pushing for
even greater use of chemicals. It includes the huge power company CNOOC, which
runs the country’s largest nitrogen fertiliser factory in Hainan’s Dongfang
City.
But the returns on this chemical investment are poor. According to a recent
Greenpeace report, the country consumes 35% of the world’s nitrogen fertiliser,
which wastes energy and other resources, while adding to water pollution and
greenhouse gas emissions.
“Agricultural pollution has become one of China’s gravest environmental crises,”
said Greenpeace campaign director Sze Pangcheung. “China needs to step up the
fight against the overuse of fertilisers and pesticides and promote ecological
agriculture which has obvious advantages for human heath, the environment, and
sustainable development of agriculture.”
Wen Tiejun, dean of the school of agriculture and rural development at Renmin
university, said the survey should be used as a turning point. His research
suggested that Chinese farmers used almost twice as much fertiliser as they
needed.
“For almost all of China’s 5,000-year history, agriculture had given our country
a carbon-absorbing economy but in the past 40 years, agriculture has become one
of the top pollution sources,” he said. “Experience shows that we don’t have to
rely on chemical farming to resolve the food security issue. The government
needs to foster low-pollution agriculture.”
But in what appears to be a statistical sleight of hand, the government said the
new agricultural data and other figures from the census would not be used to
evaluate the success of its five-year plan to reduce pollution by 10%.
Zhang Lijun, the environmental protection vice-minister, claimed China was
cleaning up its pollution problem far faster than other countries during their
dirty stage of development.
“Because China follows a different pattern of development, it is very likely
that pollution will peak when per capita income reaches US$3,000,” he said,
comparing this with the $8,000 he said was the norm in other nations.
If true, it would suggest the worst of China’s pollution problems may already be
over. According to the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, per capita
incomes in China have already passed this point. If exchange rates and a low
cost of living are factored in, Chinese incomes may be equivalent to more than
$6,000.
But Zhang’s claim is contestable. As countless pollution scandals have revealed,
many industries and local governments routinely under-report emissions and
waste.
Many harmful or controversial forms of pollution are either not measured – as is
the case for carbon dioxide and small particle emissions – or the data is not
made public, as is the case for ozone.
Zheng said the government would expand its monitoring system in the next
five-year plan.
Extracts from China’s first pollution report (for 2007):
• Sulphur dioxide emissions 23.2 million tonnes (91.3% from industry)
• Nitrogen oxide emissions: 18 million tonnes (30% from vehicles)
• Chemical oxygen demand discharges: 30.3 billion tonnes (44% from agriculture)
• Soot: 11.7 million tonnes.
• Solid waste: 3.8 billion tonnes (of which 45.7m tonnes is hazardous)
• Heavy metal discharges: 900 tonnes
• Livestock faeces: 243 million tonnes.
• Livestock urine: 163 million tonnes
• Plastic film on cropfields: 121,000 tonnes (80.3% recycled)

Go to: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/09/china-farms-pollution