Food Safety Issue In China

Food Safety Issues in China

The People’s Republic of China (PRC) had been well-known for its rapid industrialization in these recent years. Through its swift overall improvement throughout the country, China rises as one of those emerging markets, becoming a step closer to those of developed countries. As a result of these improvements, China managed to position itself as one of the largest exporter country in the world. Within its reach, China’s industrial growth keeps on increasing as time goes by. However, such rapid improvements often lead into new emerging problems that the government needed to tackle quickly. In China’s case, the problem lies within its food producers and the food safety issues. To gain a better understanding in the matter at hand, a brief explanation in regards to the situation of regulation as well as the main concerns of the issue will be looked into. The food safety laws in China could be traced back into the year of 1965. Throughout 1965 to before the end year of 1970s, China had all its food production factories controlled by the state itself. Very few food safety problems arise because at that time, government keep close watch and foods are produced using traditional methods rather than using chemicals and pesticides. As Cultural Revolution and economic reform arise, many laws and regulations were renewed or enacted. From this point onwards, pesticides, additives, and other kinds of chemicals started being used in China. The production of food was also relinquished and businessmen could start their own food production if they are capable. (Yongmin, 2008) The first issue with the food safety of China is that of the overlapping competencies among responsible authorities not addressed in the current food safety law, which is the 2009 Food Safety Law. As an example, there are many branches of departments; namely the State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA), the Ministry of Agriculture (MOA), the State General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ), and the Ministry of Commerce (MOC). All these branches all take part in regulating the food supply chain throughout the country. This resulted in difficulty in having cooperation as well as timely response among the departments in enforcing their policies. Secondly, the problem with China’s food safety lays within foods producers that often changes name and locations of its bas of operation. These food producers are what people usually dub as “cottage industries”. The already complex system of food supply chain will again be challenged by these cottage industries as they are extremely difficult to pinpoint and could easily change their base of operation and products. The third problem in food safety regulation is that there was no provision prohibiting the export of unsafe food products. Taking an example of a section in “Import and Export of Food” in the Food Safety Law, there are a total of six articles related to the obligations of food importers. But there is only one article requiring sample inspectors and food exporters to “go through the record-filing formalities at the entry/exit inspection.” This causes the government officials to be lacking in terms of safeguarding their own country’s raw material and food products exports. Last but not least is that what is required by the law is not necessarily what will be implemented and enforced to the food producers. Even with the 2009 Food Safety Law that already has tough and lengthy penalties aimed at food safety regulations violators, it still fails to ensure strict law enforcement. There are some critics who pointed out that there are not enough law and regulations in China to prevent cases such as the past melamine-milk case. Alas, having established many new laws is in itself ineffective. As a Chinese citizen in Sanlitun once noted, “There are so many people and factories in China. At the local level they don’t obey the laws of the central government. Why should this law be any different?” Moreover, the melamine-milk case was repeated throughout the year 2009, 2010, and 2011 further supported the statement that having just many laws will not be sufficient to tackle food safety issues. (Lin, 2013) Looking back, China had issues with food safety regulations enough time that it was mentioned occasionally in United States newspaper as China is one of major food supplier to Uncle Sam’s country. China’s food safety issues needed to be countered by the government body more thoroughly as exports plays vital part in China’s economic growth. In my opinion, there are two actions that Chinese government could use to tackle food safety issues. One of them is to stricken the regulations by having the need to register any food producers that wanted to establish their production. It will not be easy as government will need to firmly coordinate with local authorities to ensure smooth enforcement. This could later be used to monitor progress as well as being a tracking system should the producer violates and decided to move away/ run. The second action would be to give seminars and training to food producers and businessmen. This is to ensure that every business practitioners (not just food, but can be applied in all sectors) fully understands the regulations and what is expected of them. This way, there would be less violations against the regulation and at the same time increases the public knowledge and ultimately improves the quality of the products themselves.

References

Fred gale, J. b. (2009). Imports From China and Food Safety Issues.
Lin, C.-F. (2013, october 11). Taking China’s Food Safety Problem Seriously. Retrieved december 23, 2013, from http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/: http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/billofhealth/2013/10/11/taking-chinas-food-safety-problem-seriously-ii/
Yongmin, B. (2008, june 24). The Challenges for Food Safety in China. Retrieved december 23, 2013, from http://chinaperspectives.revues.org/: http://chinaperspectives.revues.org/819

References: Fred gale, J. b. (2009). Imports From China and Food Safety Issues. Lin, C.-F. (2013, october 11). Taking China’s Food Safety Problem Seriously. Retrieved december 23, 2013, from http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/: http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/billofhealth/2013/10/11/taking-chinas-food-safety-problem-seriously-ii/ Yongmin, B. (2008, june 24). The Challenges for Food Safety in China. Retrieved december 23, 2013, from http://chinaperspectives.revues.org/: http://chinaperspectives.revues.org/819