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Can China’s farms cope with urbanization and pollution?
photo by Magalie L'Abbé (source: Flickr Creative Commons)
As China continues to rapidly develop and urbanize, increasing pressure is put on the farmland of the Asian superpower. Pollution from toxic factory waste and an inordinate use of nitrogen fertilizers – more than twice the global average – are deteriorating the quality of China’s soil. Expanding urban areas are also diminishing the country’s precious arable land.
The percentage of China’s population that live in cities is expected to rise from 47 to 75 percent within the next thirty years. This will require changes in land use, massive construction projects – both private and public – and put a tremendous strain on China’s agricultural sector, according to an article in the Guardian.
Han Jun, an expert on rural policy at the Development Research Centre, said maintaining food security was a major challenge in the process of urbanisation as farmers moved off their fields and into cities, where the consumption of meat, grain and diary products was higher.
–Guardian
China is already importing agricultural products, such as soya, from countries like Brazil, Argentina and the United States. With industrialization and urbanization still proceeding at breakneck speed, food imports are likely to increase. And while the Chinese government does feel that changes in agricultural practices must take place in order to preserve the country’s soil and feed its shifting population, it does not plan to convert traditional small family plots into large, industrialized ‘mega-farms’.
by Graham Land
Additional resources:
Guardian – Chinese farms cause more pollution than factories, says official survey
UK: Climate change and food security spark govt. plan for farming revolution
Tags: agricultural, China, Chinese, farms, food, Pollution, population, security, SOIL, urbanization
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