Across Much of China, Huge Harvests Irrigated with Industrial and Agricultural Runoff

Water and soil pollution in China are so prevalent that the nation's farm productivity, its economy, and the people's health are at risk as modernization, urbanization, and food demand are steadily increasing.

Furthermore, China's Ministry of Land and Resources estimates that heavy metal pollution destroys 10 million metric tons of grain and contaminates another 12 million metric tons annually, incurring billions of dollars in direct economic losses each year as China struggles to satisfy the evermore-sophisticated diets of its growing population. With more and more Chinese moving into the middle and upper classes each year, so increases their ability to afford meat products like beef and pork, which are extremely water intensive as they must be fed substantial amounts of grains.

Meanwhile, as much as 10 percent of China's rice, the country's staple food, may be tainted by poisonous cadmium, a heavy metal that is discharged in mining and industrial sewage, according to scientists at Nanjing Agricultural University.

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