The massive amount of farm run-off and sewage flowing into the Pearl River every year means the Guangdong provincial government needs to focus urgently on rural environmental protection, an expert warned yesterday.
Liang Lianluan , a Guangzhou professor who has advised the government on environmental matters, urged officials to set up a unified framework for rural pollution prevention.
Such a system was needed because farm run-off had overtaken industrial discharge as the chief source of contamination in the province.
Nearly 4.5 million tonnes of contaminants - including chemical fertiliser, insecticides and sewage - flowed into the Pearl River in the past two years, according to bulletins issued by the Beijing-based State Oceanic Administration.
Between 30 and 60 per cent of the pollution came from farms, Professor Liang said, adding that Guangdong farmers used nearly twice as much chemical fertiliser as the national average.
'Farmers are not conscious of the need for strong environmental pollution controls. But our government's environmental protection efforts have just concentrated on urban areas in the past few years,' said Professor Liang, 68, from the applied environmental science faculty at the South China University of Technology in Guangzhou.