Soil Pollution Threatens Chinese Agriculture

The Guardian (h/t Big Picture Ag):

Zhou Jianmin, director of the China Soil Association, estimated that one-tenth of China's farmland was affected. "The country, the government and the public should realise how serious the soil pollution is," he said. "More areas are being affected, the degree of contamination is intensifying and the range of toxins is increasing."
Other estimates of soil pollution range as high as 40%, but an official risk assessment is unlikely to be made public for several years.
The government has spent six years on a soil survey involving 30,000 people, but the academics leading the project said they have been forbidden from releasing preliminary findings.
Chen Tongbin of the Chinese Academy of Sciences said the worst contamination was in Yunnan, Sichuan, Hunan, Anhui and Guizhou, but there were also parts of Beijing where the soil is tainted.
Unlike in Europe where persistent organic pollutants are the main concern, Chen said China's worst soil contamination is from arsenic, which is released during the mining of copper, gold and other minerals. Roughly 70% of the world's arsenic is found in China – and it is increasingly coming to the surface with horrendous consequences.
"When pollution spills cause massive die-offs of fish, the media usually blames cadmium, but that's wrong. Arsenic is responsible. This is the most dangerous chemical," he said. The country's 280,000 mines are most responsible, according to Chen.

I just asked about this last week.  I guess that answers some of my question.