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Full Text: China's food quality and safety (5) |
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22:08, August 17, 2007 |
As it is a prolonged and arduous task to strengthen food safety control, a regulatory system and a lasting efficiency mechanism should be established and improved, and planned with consideration given to both present and future needs to deal with both the symptoms and root causes of food safety problems, especially the latter.
The Chinese government stresses food safety from the source, improvement of the related basic regulatory systems, and strengthening of food safety supervision.
Full Text: China''s food quality and safety (3)
1. Intensifying Supervision on the Quality and Safety of Agricultural Products
In 2001, China started to implement the Hazard-free Food Action Plan, focusing on the control of residue of high-toxic pesticides in vegetables and clenbuterol hydrochloride contamination in livestock products, to address the most concerned problems of illegal use of high-toxic pesticide and veterinary medicines, as well as violations of residue standards. The Plan stipulates a complete supervisory process from farmland to market by emphasizing the three key aspects of materials used in farming, production and market excess. By carrying out regular monitoring and inspection, the Plan aims at enhancing people''s awareness of food quality and safety, ensuring management responsibility, and improving the levels of management and quality and safety of agricultural products by means of standardization. Today, the system for securing the quality and safety of agricultural products is improving, with steadily strengthened supervisory capacity and notable progress in agricultural standardization, leading to the formation of a work mechanism integrating service, management, supervision, penalty and emergency response, to ensure the quality and safety of agricultural products.
2. Establishing and Strictly Implementing Market Access Systems for Food Quality and Safety
The food quality and safety market access systems established by the Chinese government in 2001 comprise three major ones. One, the production license system, which requires that food-processing enterprises cannot produce and market their products without having the capability to control the source materials'' quality, and the adequate conditions to ensure food quality and safety in terms of production equipment, technological flow, product standardization, testing equipment and capability, environment, quality control, storage and transportation, packaging and labeling, and production staff. Enterprises can produce and sell food only after obtaining a food production license. Two, the compulsory inspection system, which means that enterprises have the legal obligation to ensure that their food products pass quality inspection before entering the market. Three, the market access labeling system, i.e., enterprises are required to put on food products the QS label, guaranteeing their quality and safety. Following the principle of phased implementation, by the end of June 2007, some 107,000 food production licenses had been issued to enterprises, which took up over 90 percent of the market of their trades. Meanwhile, supervision has been strengthened over enterprises with food production licenses. By the end of June 2007, 1,276 food production licenses had been withdrawn, cancelled, revoked or nullified for substandard food products.
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