Tainted Food From China

The FDA is so behind that it's just scary.

This is something I was thinking about this morning. So I did some research and some math.

China has 19.68% of the world's population, although new estimates suggest 21%, but is barely able to feed this population as more land in China becomes unusable.

Yet, China is now the 3rd largest source of agricultural products to the United States ( CRS Report for Congress: http://fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL34080.pdf ) .

In fact, China is the largest exporter of agricultural products in the world ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_China ).

So, how does China get around this conundrum of being the largest exporter of food, the largest population and yet barely able to feed its own population? They import Wheat. ( http://www.abc.net.au/rural/content/2005/s1371366.htm ).

How does this add up? Think about it this way. China's agricultural exports have the worst record of food contamination of any country in the world. However, China imports from some of the safest agricultural suppliers in the world (US and Australia).


28% of china is desert:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0WDP/is_/ai_84235761

36% mountains + desert:
http://www.asianinfo.org/asianinfo/china/geography.htm

only about 14% is usable/arable for farming (not desert, mountainous, a salt marsh, unelevated):
http://www.smartgrowth.umd.edu/chinalandpolicyprogram/landissuesinchina-tensionbetweenlandandpeople.htm