South China sea polluted by livestock wastes

The vast China Sea continues to absorb heavy loads of swine and poultry wastes from the countries surrounding it.

More than half of the world’s population of hogs and more than one-third of poultry are raised in East Asia. And, distressingly, most of these wastes end up in the South China Sea.

The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and the Global Environmental Facility (GEF) note that agricultural waste ranks second as the largest land-based source of marine pollution.

In East and South Asia, a major part of these wastes come from livestock production, particularly swine and poultry.

To address this problem, the World Bank (WB), GEF, and the United Nations/Food and Agriculture Organization-Livestock, Environment and Development Initiative (UN/FAO-LEAD) have launched a project titled "Livestock Waste Management in East Asia". The five-year project covers Thailand, Vietnam. and the Chinese province of Guangdong.

The Los Baños-based Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEARCA) headed by Director Arsenio M. Balisacan coordinates the environmental baseline study on the migration of nutrients , particularly nitrogen and phosporus, from livestock wastes to the South China Sea.

Once results of the survey are gathered, the SEARCA team headed by Dr. Rodrigo Badayos and Prof. Moises Dorado, UPLB faculty members and SEARCA consultants, in coordination with the other consultants, will come up with the criteria for the selection of forms and production villages for the proposed project intervention in the three countries.

Based on the study’s results, recommendation for the design of an environmental mitigation and monitoring plan will be submitted to FAO/LEAD. – Rudy A. Fernandez