From New Scientists, September 2004: “China’s economic revolution is coming at a cost. While improved prosperity and government incentives convinced millions of people to give up the rural life and move into towns and cities, China’s agriculture is in rapid decline, prompting fears that the country that is home to one-fifth of the world’s population will soon be unable to feed itself.
Those fears have been heightened by two new reports by Chinese scientists. They reveal that a national push to encourage farmers to abandon the millennia-old tradition of growing rice in favour of fruit and vegetables is having a profound and detrimental affect on the quality of China’s soil and water.”
The full article is here.
