China’s Topsoil Nightmare Is Real

The world can ill-afford the cost of not helping China!

China is losing 4.5 billion tons of soil each year

About 35 % of China’s agricultural land is affected by desertification seriously threatening its ability to feed its population, a nationwide survey revealed.

Desertification in China’s virtually out of control! Photo: Xinhua

Soil erosion caused by water and wind is removing about 4.5 billion tons of soil each year, Xinhua official news agency quoted from a report by China’s bio-environment security research team.

“China has a more dire situation than India, Japan, the United States, Australia and many other countries suffering from soil erosion,” Xinhua said.

“Beijing has long been worried about the desertification of its northern grasslands, and scaled back logging after rain rushing down denuded mountainsides caused massive flooding along the Yangtze in the late 1990s.” Reuters reported.

Entire villages are being buried in China. Photo: Xinhua

Abot 1.6 million square km of land are being degraded by water erosion each year affecting almost every river basin. Additionally,  2.0 million square km are eroded by wind, the report said.

The three-year survey on soil conservation was the most comprehensive report since 1949 when the Communist Party came to power in China.

In 2003 Chinese experts  estimated that desertification cost the country  a direct loss of 64.2 billion yuan  with indirect economic losses of 288.9 billion yuan, Xinhua said. Their recent report puts the direct losses at 200 billion yuan.

NOTE: By as early as 2012 critically low levels of topsoil will seriously affect food production globally.

[$1 is about 6.8 Yuan]

Related Links:

• Topsoil
• First Wave of World’s Collapsing Cities
• Land degradation threatens 1.5 billion people
• China suffers great losses from desertification
• Food Crisis (Index Page)