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| Agenda Item 4 | Conference Room Document 24 |
second fao/who global forum of food safety regulators
Bangkok, Thailand, 12-14 October 2004
(Prepared by the Ministry of Agriculture, P.R. China)
In Chinese, there is an old saying: "People are the foundation of the country, food is the first necessity of people and safety is the priority of food." Food safety is a matter of prime importance to the human health and physique, and Government should highlight this issue. The Chinese government always applies herself to enhancing the monitoring system construction on quality and safety control of farm products; significant progress in quality and safety control of farm products makes a sound guarantee for China's non-pollutant food.
The administration of food safety is an overall and systematic program, which involves various kinds of risks. Efficient control should be based on well-organized monitoring system. In recent years, the Chinese government has enhanced the construction of administrative, legal and basic systems that related to the quality and safety control of farm products. Furthermore, the government has equipped itself with the capability to implementing efficient and effective monitoring and administration.
(1) Readjusting the administrative system, Enhancing the effective monitoring
In the past, the food safety administration in China was under the co-administration of Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Health, and State Administration for Industry and Commerce, State Administration for Quality and Quarantine and other concerned government agencies. In order to improve the efficiency and coordination among different state departments, the State Food and Drug Administration was set up in 2003 by the State Council. This newly established Bureau is responsible for coordinating supervision of food safety directly under the leadership of the State Council. Since 2003, the Bureau has carried out a campaign named as Safety Programme of Food and Drugs, which played a vital role in the enforcement of administration on the food safety, cooperation and information exchange among different government agencies and the establishment of a national response system to handle emergent public food safety hazards.
(2) Accelerating the development of legal system, Improving the whole-process monitoring
China has passed dozens of laws and regulations concerning the food safety, such as the Law of Food Sanitation, the Law of Products' Quality, the Law of Animal Quarantine, Regulations of Agricultural Chemical Administration, and Regulations of Veterinary Drug Administration and Regulations on Feed and Feed Additives Administration. At present, the government is drafting the Law of Quality and Safety Control of Farm Products, for the purpose of establishing and improving the whole-process administration of farm products from the field to the table.
(3) Strengthening the construction of basic systems of quality and safety control, pressing forward the scientific research and extending the international exchange
The Ministry of Agriculture has been making great effort in the enforcement of the system construction to prevent animal epidemic disease. At the same time, it also focuses on the establishment of three basic systems which are closely related to quality and safety control of farm products. These three systems are quality standards, testing and inspection, certification of farm products. China has already set 479 national quality standards, 1681 departmental standards and 17000 local standards. These standards have preliminary formed the quality standards system of farm products. In the case of testing and inspection, there are 187 quality supervision and testing laboratories at the ministry level, which have all be authorized by the Ministry of Agriculture. Among them, 12 are testing laboratories at the national level. These laboratories can provide testing services on agricultural environment and ecology, agricultural inputs and farm products, and can meet the requirement of the quality and safety control of any farm products on the whole. The authorization of non-pollutant farm products, green food and organic food have been improved greatly and basically formulated an integrated certification system. Up to the end of 2003, 2671 products have been authorized by the Ministry of Agriculture as non-pollutant farm products, 4030 have been entitled green food labels by China Green Food Development Center and 231 have been listed as authorized organic food by Zhonglu Huaxia Organic Food Certification Center. These have satisfied different requirements from different consumption classes and accelerated China's farm products' export to a notable high.
Furthermore, the Chinese government has attached great importance to the research work in order to make a breakthrough in key technologies of food safety and establish a food emergent response system and a comprehensive administration system. The Ministry of Agriculture also strengthened its research on farm products as to the aspects of their quality and safety control, monitoring system, management and market development, quality tracing back, scientific certification and routine monitoring. In recent years, the Ministry has extended its information exchange and cooperation with EU, North American countries, Japan, Asia-Pacific countries and other developing countries in this regard.
Since 2001, the Ministry of Agriculture has initiated the Action Plan for Non-pollutant Food, to tackle the difficulties and problems in quality and safety control of farm products with decisive actions. As a result, it made remarkable achievement in the control of products' sources.
(1) Carrying out general surveys on quality and safety of farm products
During the past few years, the Ministry of Agriculture has effectively implemented general surveys on quality and safety control of farm products in their process of production, management and marketing. The surveys involved dominant farm products such as rice, corn for special purposes, soybean with rich oil content, cotton, canola, citrus, apple and aquatic products as well as tea, potato, bee products, tropical products, agricultural inputs and vegetables, livestock products and peanuts for export. A data bank on main farm products was set up on the base of the surveys.
(2) Establishing the routine monitoring system of quality and safety control of farm products
In 2001, the Ministry of Agriculture started to implement a monitoring plan for residues from agricultural chemicals and veterinary drugs. According to the plan, every year, 5 times nation wide routine monitoring should be carried out in 37 large and medium sized cities for pesticide residues in vegetables, in 16 cities for the veterinary drug residues. The result of the monitoring should be sent to related municipal government agencies as a feedback, in order to put forward the quality and safety control of farm products. Since 2004, the result of monitoring has been released to the public with an objective as encouraging the qualified ones and urging the unqualified to make an upswing.
(3) Reinforcing the monitoring of agricultural inputs
The Ministry of Agriculture has taken enforced measures in the management of registration and application of agricultural inputs, including seeds, agricultural chemicals, veterinary drugs, and feed and feed additives, fertilizers, breeding poultries, breeding livestock, breeding aquatic products, GMO products and other new varieties. Meanwhile, the Ministry is also speeding up the process of prohibition, limitation and elimination of high toxic and high residue agriculture inputs, and promoting some advanced quality management system and guarantee system such as labeling, inspection, registration and routine feedback.
(4) Developing certain approaches for the training and popularization of technologies on quality and safety of farm products
So far, the Ministry of Agriculture has set up a large number of farms and production bases for the purpose of demonstration of standardization of agricultural production, non-pollutant farm products, breeding technology, exporting agricultural products and agricultural inputs production. The standardized production and management of these farms and production bases have taken an effective part in the facilitation of quality and safety of agricultural production. In the process of both the construction of these demonstrating farms and the pressing forward of agricultural industrialization, the Ministry of Agriculture successfully integrated the extension of new technologies of quality and safety control to the farmers' training, thus improved the capabilities of agricultural producers and managerial personnel. Government departments at all levels in China have in addition devoted themselves to developing various kinds of approaches to popularizing the knowledge of quality and safety control of farm products.
Nowadays, in a world of openness, communication, exchange and cooperation, quality and safety of food and farm products are not a mere concern for a specific country or region. The issue invites joint effort and close cooperation from all governments and related parties in our region. We hold the truth that regional cooperation and exchange should be strengthened in the coming days, especially in the areas as key technologies and risk analysis and assessment of quality and safety control. Countries in the Asia-Pacific region should put further emphasis on the coordination of laws and regulations and administrative systems as to achieve a safe and healthy market for agricultural products.