Soil monitoring network passes milestone

Most grain-growing areas now covered by devices that can detect heavy metals

China has reached the halfway point in setting up a national soil monitoring network, with about 20,000 quality control devices that now cover 99 percent of all counties, according to a senior environment official.

The goal is to have 40,000 devices nationwide by 2020, "but already 88 percent of the main grain-growing areas are covered by the initial network", Qiu Qiwen, head of soil quality management at the Ministry of Environmental Protection, said on Wednesday.