中國土壤污染嚴重 加劇食品安全擔憂

The extent of China's soil pollution, long guarded as a state secret, was laid out in an official report that confirmed deep-seated fears about contaminated farmland and the viability of the country's food supply.

中國官方報告公佈了一向被視爲國家機密的中國土壤污染數據，人們對中國耕地污染以及食品供應的擔憂得到印證。

Nearly one-fifth of the country's arable land is polluted, officials said in the report, shedding unexpected light on the scale of the problem--a legacy of China's three decades of breakneck economic growth and industrial expansion.

中國富翁的農產品情結報告稱，中國有近五分之一的耕地受到污染。報告出人意料的揭示了土壤污染問題的嚴重程度，這個問題是中國長達30年的經濟高速增長和工業擴張帶來的一個後果。

'The national soil situation overall does not offer cause for optimism,' said the report. 'In some areas, soil pollution is relatively severe. The condition of arable land is troubling, with the problem of pollution from industry and mining particularly worrisome.'

報告稱，全國土壤環境狀況總體不容樂觀。報告稱，部分地區土壤污染較重，耕地土壤環境質量堪憂，工礦業廢棄地土壤環境問題突出。

While China's problems with air pollution are well-documented, environmentalists have warned about the effects of less-visible contamination of the country's land.

此項爲期七年的調查實際調查面積爲630萬平方公里。報告發現，中國約有16%的土壤和19%的耕地受到不同程度的污染。報告稱，污染主要來自重金屬等無機來源。中國國土面積爲960萬平方公里。

'Air pollution is definitely more visible and present, but soil is the last environmental media where pollutants end up,' said Wu Yixiu, head of Greenpeace's East Asia toxins campaign. Heavy metal particles in the air and water seep into the land, then 'get into the food and affect everybody,' she added.

報告顯示，中國土壤中的主要無機污染物爲鎘、鎳、砷這三種重金屬。鎘和砷是採礦業的副產品，衆所周知它們可導致慢性病。

The report, based on a seven-year survey covering 2.4 million square miles, found that about 16% of the country's soil and 19% of its arable land was polluted to one degree or another. The vast majority of the pollution came from inorganic sources such as heavy metals, it said. China's total land area is 3.7 million square miles.

報告顯示，中國有近3%的耕地要麼屬於中度污染，要麼屬於重度污染。報告沒有對各種程度的污染加以界定。報告稱，長江三角洲、珠江三角洲和東北老工業基地的土壤污染問題較爲突出。

The most common inorganic pollutants found in China's soil were the heavy metals cadmium, nickel and arsenic, according to Thursday's report. Cadmium and arsenic, both known to cause chronic health problems, are byproducts of mining.

由於耕地面積缺乏，耕地污染問題對於中國來說尤爲令人擔憂。根據最近一次全國土地調查，截至2012年年末，中國耕地總面積爲3.34億英畝（合20.27億畝），較政府設定的“紅線”（指養活中國人口所需的耕地面積）多出3,700萬英畝左右。

Nearly 3% of arable land in China was found to be either moderately or seriously polluted, the report said, without defining what those levels of contamination mean. Pollution was particularly severe in eastern China's Yangtze River Delta, the Pearl River Delta in the south and old industrial zones in the northeast, it said.

中國國土資源部去年12月公佈，已經有824萬英畝耕地已經不適於進行農業種植。環保人士們稱，餘下的耕地中大多數屬於低質或中質水平，幾十年來大規模使用化肥和殺蟲劑使得這些土地喪失了生產能力。

Pollution of farmland is of particular concern in China because of how little of it has. According to the most recent national land survey, China had 334 million acres of arable land at the end of 2012, roughly 37 million acres above the government's 'red line' for the amount of farmland necessary to feed the country's population.

這麼多的污染土壤意味着中國未來可能需要開始進口更多食物。美國農業部經濟研究所(Economic Research Service)的經濟學家蓋爾(Fred Gale)說，長期而言，中國需要放鬆自然資源基礎承受的壓力，並進口更多食物。他說，農業受到工業污染的影響，但同時農業自身也造成了許多污染，他這裏指的是中國肉類需求增加所造成的浪費和生態環境破壞。

Already, some 8.24 million acres of arable land has become unfit for farming, China's Ministry of Land and Resources disclosed in December. Environmentalists say the majority of the remaining land is of poor or moderate quality, having been stripped of its productivity by decades of heavy fertilizer and pesticide use.

2013年4月，幾批來自中國主要大米出產省份湖南的大米中被發現含有大量鎘。這一發現引發了外界對耕地的擔憂，並一度使得湖南大米價格下跌達14%。湖南同時也是中國前五大銅、鉛等有色金屬的生產地區。

So much polluted soil means China will likely have to begin importing more food. 'China will need to ease pressure on its natural resource base and import more of its food over the long-term,' said Fred Gale, an economist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service. 'Agriculture is impacted by industrial pollution but also creates a lot of pollution itself,' he said, citing waste and ecological damage caused by China's growing taste for meat.

普遍接受的標準是，每公斤大米可含鎘量爲0.4毫克，若長期食用超過這一標準的大米會導致骨骼疼痛，並對肝腎造成損傷。2013年檢測的幾批湖南大米樣本顯示鎘量均超標。

In April 2013, the discovery of unusually high quantities of cadmium in batches of rice grown in Hunan--the country's top rice-producing region, as well as a top-five producer of nonferrous metals like copper and lead--set off worries about farmland and sent prices for Hunan rice tumbling by as much as 14%.

而就在湖南大米被檢測出含鎘量超標之前不久，環境保護部拒絕了一位北京律師要求公佈土壤污染調查結果的請求。該部門當時說，相關數據涉及國家機密，因此不能夠公佈。

Consuming cadmium in excess of the widely accepted standard of 0.4 milligrams per kilogram of rice over a long period can cause crippling pain the bones and liver and kidney damage. Several samples of the Hunan rice tested in 2013 showed levels of cadmium above that standard.

Zuma Press青海省，農民正在給耕地鬆土。不過中國政府已經開始加強重視環境惡化帶來的風險。

The cadmium disclosure came shortly after the Ministry of Environmental Protection rejected a request filed by a Beijing-based lawyer to release the results of the soil pollution survey. The ministry said at the time the data couldn't be released because it was a state secret.

去年12月，中國宣佈將拋棄以往以GDP爲核心的政府官員考覈體系，代之以一套涵蓋更廣泛的標準，其中就包括環境保護。在網絡上發起呼籲提高空氣質量信息透明度的運動三年後，中國大多數大城市都每小時發佈空氣污染水平數據。去年7月，環境保護部發布了相關規定，要求中國所有省份建立網絡平臺，發佈主要企業的實時污染數據。

Authorities have started to give more weight to the risks of environmental degradation.

力推公開土壤污染信息的律師董正偉說，這是讓公民在環境保護問題上享有知情權的第一步。他還補充說，這一信息對公衆來說已經來晚了，不過總比沒有強。

In December, the Communist Party announced it would scrap its previous gross domestic product-driven performance evaluation system and replace it with one that would judge officials according to a wider variety of criteria, including environmental protection. Three years after an online campaign calling for more accurate information about air quality, most major cities in China now publish hourly data on air pollution levels. In July, the environmental ministry issued regulations requiring all Chinese provinces to establish an online platform for reporting pollution produced by major companies.

廣東省生態環境與土壤研究所土壤治理專家陳能場說，這打破了土壤污染普查結果是國家機密的觀念，並提供了更多信息。但他也稱，政府發佈這份數據只是做個姿態，並未提供確切的解決方案。

'This is a primary step for citizens' right to know about the environmental protection issue,' said Dong Zhengwei, the lawyer who pushed for release of the results. He added, 'this information is late for the public, but it's still better than nothing.'

土壤修復是使遭受污染的土壤恢復正常功能的技術措施，這一過程對技術要求很高，而且需要幾十年的時間。在不同的條件下，重金屬的反應也不同，這就令確定污染源變得困難，要把重金屬從土壤中除去，可能需要把土地休耕數年。

Chen Nengchang, a soil remediation expert with the Guangdong Institute of Environmental and Soil Sciences, said the report 'clears away the image of soil pollution as a state secret and provides more information.' But he added that the release is 'a gesture' that did little to provide solutions.

中國在最新的五年規劃中提出，將投入人民幣300億元用於土壤修復和污染預防，不過有專家表示，相關成本要比這個數目多得多。