Pollution is a disaster for the soil. When chemicals go into the ground, they slowly reduce the fertility of the soil and make it unsuitable for farming. They may also change the structure of the soil, which gets more easily destroyed by water and air.
For ordinary consumers, the influence of soil pollution can be felt most strongly in the supermarket. Exposure(暴露) to soil pollution can pollute foods grown in the field, harming people's health.
One example of this is the " poisonous rice event" that surfaced in 2013. Some rice from Hunan province was found to contain higher levels of cadmium(镉), a kind of metal likely to cause cancer, because Hunan has some of the worst soil pollution in China, according to CBC News. All the samples collected from this area were heavily polluted by cadmium. Sometimes, the cadmium level is 20 times higher than the national standard.
According to scientists, high levels of cadmium have been linked to organ( 器官) failure, weakening of bones and cancer. " Cadmium is likely to store up in the kidney and liver," Chen Nengchang, a scholar at the Guangdong Institute of Eco-environment and Soil Sciences, told The New York Times. " When the amount reaches a certain point, it will cause a serious health risk for the organs. "
Unfortunately, fixing the problem was not as simple as destroying a few piles of rice. Since the outer covering of rice are often used to feed farm animals, the meat we eat and the milk we drink may both be at risk.
Luckily both the government and Chinese consumers have becomes more and more aware of this kind of pollutions, and aim to fight the situation with combined effort. There are many things we, as individual, can do to help. Eating organic foods are one of them.
Organic food is not only better for our health but also for our environment, especially the soil. To grow organic food, farmers stop using all artificial chemicals——including fertilizers, and pesticides. This production method does not cause any risk of soil pollution, unlike traditional farming, which uses tons of artificial chemicals. By consuming organic foods, we support healthier soil.