Food safety put on priority list after scandals
Source: Agencies/Shanghai Daily |
March 11, 2010, Thursday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
CHINA would step up food-safety efforts by, in part, expanding supervision to reach more of the country's myriad small farms, a top agricultural official said yesterday.
The nation has been struggling to overcome a series of food-safety problems, including one that started two years ago when at least six babies died and nearly 300,000 fell ill after consuming infant formula tainted with high levels of a dangerous additive.
Vice Agriculture Minister Wei Chaoan told a Beijing news conference on the sidelines of the annual session of the National People's Congress that agricultural officials at all levels were working to prevent any large-scale crises in food safety.
The difficulty the government faces can be seen by the fact the tainted-milk problem has lingered, with new cases appearing last year because old batches of contaminated products were not destroyed after the 2008 scandal.
Wei said China was bringing more farms under better supervision, a challenge in a vast country where some rural areas were still very poor.
"Our agricultural products overall are safe and of high quality, but we must also recognize that while we make the transition from traditional to modern farming, many of our operations remain scattered, production methods are still backward and our supervision is lagging," Wei said.
A ministry statement handed out at the news conference said the government promised to "implement quality and safety monitoring programs targeting raw and fresh milk, and strengthen supervision of purchase stations."
The tainted formula was made from milk that was deliberately contaminated with melamine to fool inspectors testing for protein content.
Melamine, which can cause renal failure and kidney stones, is used to make plastics and fertilizers.
Wei also said that a stringent monitoring and testing network had been established to ensure all cowpeas transported nationally from the island province of Hainan were safe after high pesticides levels were recently reported and vegetable consignments halted.
About 280 kilograms of prohibited substances were found at 1,732 pesticide stores on the island, he said.
Last month, authorities in Wuhan, capital of central China's Hubei Province, found about 3.5 tons of cowpeas from Hainan were treated with a banned pesticide.
The nation has been struggling to overcome a series of food-safety problems, including one that started two years ago when at least six babies died and nearly 300,000 fell ill after consuming infant formula tainted with high levels of a dangerous additive.
Vice Agriculture Minister Wei Chaoan told a Beijing news conference on the sidelines of the annual session of the National People's Congress that agricultural officials at all levels were working to prevent any large-scale crises in food safety.
The difficulty the government faces can be seen by the fact the tainted-milk problem has lingered, with new cases appearing last year because old batches of contaminated products were not destroyed after the 2008 scandal.
Wei said China was bringing more farms under better supervision, a challenge in a vast country where some rural areas were still very poor.
"Our agricultural products overall are safe and of high quality, but we must also recognize that while we make the transition from traditional to modern farming, many of our operations remain scattered, production methods are still backward and our supervision is lagging," Wei said.
A ministry statement handed out at the news conference said the government promised to "implement quality and safety monitoring programs targeting raw and fresh milk, and strengthen supervision of purchase stations."
The tainted formula was made from milk that was deliberately contaminated with melamine to fool inspectors testing for protein content.
Melamine, which can cause renal failure and kidney stones, is used to make plastics and fertilizers.
Wei also said that a stringent monitoring and testing network had been established to ensure all cowpeas transported nationally from the island province of Hainan were safe after high pesticides levels were recently reported and vegetable consignments halted.
About 280 kilograms of prohibited substances were found at 1,732 pesticide stores on the island, he said.
Last month, authorities in Wuhan, capital of central China's Hubei Province, found about 3.5 tons of cowpeas from Hainan were treated with a banned pesticide.
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