China has issued the first national standards to control discharges of pollution such as sewage from farms. The rules issued by the State Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA) cover more than 14,000 large and medium farms around the country.

Vast quantities of animal sewage produced by livestock have become a major source of pollution in rural areas, where around 80 percent of China's people live, according to an SEPA survey.

Animals on farms produced 1.9 billion tonnes of excrement during 1999, a quantity almost two-and-a-half times greater than the amount of solid waste discharged by China's industrial sector, the report said.

Farms around the country were urged to make better use of animal waste under the new standards, which can be processed, for example, into high quality fertilizer or fuel for electric generators, said the authority.

Animal sewage---big pollution producers

Large poultry and livestock farms in the suburbs of big cities, especially in East China's coastal areas, are big pollution producers.

Some large farms disposed of untreated sewage by pouring it directly into rivers, Ji Gang, an SEPA official, said.

In the Huangpu River in Shanghai, for instance, more than 30 per cent of the chemical oxygen demand (COD) comes from animal excrement.

Sewage from the farms, along with the use of fertilizer and pesticide, has therefore become the biggest pollution source for water resources in the countryside, said Ji.

More than a third of all water pollution nationally came from the countryside.

The new rules specify the maximum amount of discharges a farm can produce, as well as limiting distances between farms and residential areas or water supplies.

"No technical difficulties stand in the way of solving the problem," said Ji. "It is only an issue of awareness."

( March 4, 2002)