China vows to clean up rural environment

Agriculture accounts for half of all pollution of the country.China has made clean up rural pollution a priority for the first time in its latest five year Plan.REUTERS

To combat pollution in rural areas, top priority for China will be in the next few years, Li Ganjie, Deputy Minister of environmental protection, in particular pollution from agricultural sources, said on 28 March at a Conference in Beijing on the rural environment.

Since the extent of the pollution has received by agriculture decades fokussierend on pollution from industry, with the most efforts not much attention, says Zhang Fusuo, a researcher at the China Agricultural University in Beijing. This is the first time, the protection of the rural environment was inducted into the country five year budget.

"This is wonderful news for the course of environmental protection in China," says Zhang.

China's rural areas produce more than 9 billion tonnes of waste water and 280 million tonnes of household waste per year. And as most of the country have no treatment facilities for waste or waste water to 600,000 villages, is issued much locally of untreated. "In many villages, that have I been, there is dust everywhere and it stinks like hell," says Zhang.

The major culprit in rural pollution, however, is the agriculture. The first national pollution census in 2007 carried out showed that agriculture was 43.7% of the total chemical oxygen demand (COD) - a measure of organic pollutants in water. It was sewage also 57.2% and 67.3% of a total of 4.7 million tons nitrogen and 0.4 million tonnes of phosphorus, respectively.

Li said, that the Ministry aims to that clean up 60,000 villages by 2015, with a focus on regions important for freshwater resources and where pollution had a negative impact on the health - like villages with high cancer or endemic diseases.

The Ministry is public awareness and participation in environmental protection in rural areas to promote, and performance in curbing rural pollution will be evaluated one of the criteria by the local government officials.

The clean-Up program includes new treatment facilities for waste, waste water and animal manure, clean up contaminated to collect soil and waterways, and the development of large-scale livestock farms and facilitate reuse of fertilizer. There are also plans to establish long-term monitoring networks in order to ensure sustainable conservation.

As existing environmental laws and guidelines on environmental pollution by the industry are the most, the Ministry is pollution new laws for the protection of soil and the reduction and treatment of livestock development.

Although the total investment is unclear in the 21st century business Herald, a Chinese-language newspaper, reported that 9.5 billion Renminbi (US$ 1.5 billion) spend the Central Government in the next few years to clean up the rural environment.

While welcomes such initiatives and say many agriculture researchers that they will not be sufficient, rural pollution put an end to areas and significant improvements in agricultural practices, such as better livestock management and cleaner agriculture should be added.

With limited manpower, chemical fertilizers subsidised available in most rural areas dumping become but plenty optioned nutrient-rich animal manure easier and cheaper than use to harvest to fertilize. And loaded with additives such as antibiotics and heavy metals, making many farmers reluctant use animal feed in China fertilizer as a substitute for chemical fertilizers.

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Thus cattle has become the largest post pollution responsible the end - to be 98%, 38% and 56% of cod, nitrogen and phosphorus, or, according to the Census national pollution.

The key to the reduction in pollution cattle is the promotion of greater integration between agriculture and livestock breeding, so that animal manure is recycled, rather than always a source of pollution, says Wu Jinshui, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of subtropical agriculture in ChangshaProvinz, Hunan. Such a mixed crop and livestock system "could ' better use of water, nutrients and animal wastes, and reduce pollution", he says. But "A prerequisite for a mixed system is to tighten rules for animal feed production," he adds.

In addition to laws on the protection of soil and animal husbandry, rules about the use of fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides - its use is much higher per hectare in China than in the industrialised countries - are urgently needed, says Zhang.

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