China will launch a 3.6-billion-yuan ($580 million) initiative this year to tackle the nation's soil pollution problem, the Ministry of Environmental Protection said on Monday.
According to a statement issued by the ministry, the scheme will support 37 projects in 30 city-level regions to treat heavy metal contamination of soil.
Since 2013, media outlets have reported that the soil in many of China's key rice-producing regions contains high levels of cadmium, lead, arsenic and other harmful heavy metals, which poses a grave threat to the country's food safety.
Some 65 percent of China's population relies on rice as their main source of food.
According to a report conducted by the China Rice Institute under the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, roughly 20 percent of China's arable land had been contaminated with heavy metals by the year of 2010.
Cadmium pollution alone has affected arable land in 11 provinces, especially in parts of the country that lie south of the Yangtze River.
The report claimed that discharge from mining and other industries is to blame for the deterioration of China's soil quality.
Tong Qianming, an expert from the Hunan Academy of Geological Sciences, said China's heavy use of chemical fertilizers is another source of heavy metal pollution.
Globally, roughly 660,000 kilograms of cadmium is deposited in soil every year, of which 55 percent comes from fertilizers, the Xinhua News Agency reported.
Human consumption of cadmium can cause various serious health problems, including damage to the urinary system.
