Hou Jinchun/Shanghai Daily news

Heavy metals have contaminated about one-fifth of China's arable land, as the pollution continues to threaten both poor and rich areas, according to the latest issue of China Newsweek, a Beijing-based news magazine.
"20 million hectares, or one-fifth, of our agricultural land, is polluted by such heavy metals as cadmium, lead and chromium," said Sun Tieheng, a member of Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Chen Tongbin, another scientist of the academy, said arsenic is probably the biggest pollutant among all heavy metal pollution in China. Leading a government-sponsored research team, Mr Chen has conducted soil pollution studies in Beijing, Hunan, Guangxi, Yunnan, Guizhou and Gansu.
A photo taken by the research team gives a gloomy picture of Binzhou, Hunan province: treeless mountains, barren farmlands, skin diseases like festering sores, all of which are marks left by the toxic pollutants.
Life in Binzhou is just an example of how heavy metals can hurt.
A recent survey shows that heavy metals reduce China's grain production by more than 10 million tons and contaminate another 12 million tons each year, incurring financial losses of at least 20 billion yuan (US$2.4 billion).    
Toxic rice, which contains cadmium as high as fifteen times above the safety standard, was found in the Yangtze River Delta.
Due to soil pollution, suburban areas of Nanjing were regarded by Professor Zhao Qiguo as no longer suitable for crop production.
Heavy metal contamination is mainly caused by industrial pollution in coastal areas. In Guangdong Province alone, more than 18,000 factories are dumping industrial waste.
Meanwhile, metal mining activities are the chief culprit in less affluent hinterlands like Binzhou. Heavy metals are released during the smelting process and scattered far beyond the mining sites by floods and winds.
Heavy metal poisoning is an invisuable hazard to vegetable consumers. Although the authorities regularly test samples of vegetables for pesticides, they rarely have the equipment to examine them for heavy metals, according to an official with the department of agriculture and forestry in Jiangsu Province. Since the human body does not handle most heavy metals well, excess levels are poisonous. 
Currently, China has no regulations to prevent soil pollution and no penalties for offences. The absence of law not only hampers efforts to tackle the problem, but also offers foreign countries a safe place to re-locate their industries that cause high pollution. Experts estimate it will take at least three years before the country imposes the relevant laws.

(The artile is based on a report in "China Newsweek".)