Polluted farmland

An estimated one-tenth of China's farmland is polluted by industrial waste and other contaminants, drawing into even greater question the state of food safety in country already laden with food quality problems.

According to a report earlier this week in the investigative newspaper Southern Metropolis Daily, as much as 100,000 square kilometers of farmland in China is polluted. Heavy metals and other toxins dumped in the soil over years' of fast-paced economic growth and subpar environmental regulatory enforcement have left farms laden with pollution. Earlier reports have noted that much of the country's rice and grain supplies contain heavy metals from contaminated soil. The government has released some plans to deal with the issue, but the latest report contends that the issue remains critical.