- Food hygiene in rural distribution mainly concerns rural markets and village shops, where oversight has been inadequate. Cui Jian, a deputy to the Hebei Provincial People’s Congress, called for stronger food-hygiene supervision in rural distribution.
Deputy Cui suggested speeding up the integration of food-safety regulators’ functions, clarifying responsibility for supervising individual cooked-food stalls in markets, and having regulators press them to obtain licences, conduct regular inspections and standardise practices. He urged more support for building distribution-centre warehouses and adding vehicles under the county-level “Ten-Thousand-Village, Thousand-Township Market Project” to raise distribution capacity; stronger supervision and guidance of village-shop hygiene, requiring shops to source goods through the county distribution centre, keep purchase ledgers, demand certificates and receipts, and strictly control quality so that counterfeit and substandard food cannot flow into rural markets; and stronger publicity and education on the Food Safety Law, so businesses comply, act in good faith, sell no unsafe food and ensure safe rural food consumption.
- Food safety is paramount — so how can its supervision be strengthened? Liu Ronghua, NPC deputy and deputy director of the Shanxi Food and Drug Administration, argued for “the strictest whole-process supervision from field to table to safeguard the people’s food safety.” She prescribed five measures: improving supporting rules under the Food Safety Law; strengthening source control in planting and breeding; speeding up sound food-safety standards; building a framework of shared social governance of food safety; and reinforcing departments’ supervisory responsibilities.
Safeguarding food on the table must start at the source. “We must strengthen source control in planting and breeding,” Deputy Liu suggested: the state should improve the environment of production areas, speed up revision of soil-quality standards and carry out detailed soil surveys; strictly manage agricultural inputs and phase in bans and restrictions on highly toxic pesticides; strengthen quality control over production, vigorously promote agricultural-standardisation demonstration zones, and accelerate traceability systems; and tighten source supervision and the handling of problem products.
- “What I care about most is the safety testing of farm produce,” said Lin Yi, NPC deputy and head of the Vegetable Management Office of Wenling, Zhejiang. In recent years, governments at all levels in Zhejiang have attached great importance to food safety and included it in their “practical projects for the people.” Testing at rural vegetable markets has improved further, with rapid-test rooms set up, testing procedures and standards drawn up, and results published promptly — to some degree safeguarding residents’ “vegetable basket” and winning public approval.
Deputy Lin suggested the government invest appropriately to build a lasting rapid-testing mechanism: increasing fiscal funding to gradually resolve issues of testing equipment, inspection funds, staffing and wages, and raising markets’ enthusiasm for testing; strengthening business training for testers and a certified-to-work mechanism to raise their level, so the test rooms truly function; and improving the quality-and-safety traceability system, strengthening the digitisation of market rapid testing in a planned, step-by-step way.
- Food safety was a hot topic in the Shandong delegation’s group discussions. From the safety of farm produce to illegal additives in processing, from strict enforcement and penalties to promoting shared governance, from improving food-safety systems to educating practitioners, deputies discussed the current situation, raised problems and proposed measures on this issue that concerns everyone.
The discussion began at the source — crops. Deputies held that pesticides currently have the biggest impact on the safety of farm produce. Some farmers have weak awareness of safe use, considering only efficacy and not toxicity when buying pesticides. “Most farmers know pesticides are toxic, but to them, anything that kills pests or cures disease is a good drug,” said Da Jianwen, NPC deputy and vice-chair of the Zibo CPPCC, Shandong. Moreover, each pesticide has a prescribed dose, but some farmers increase it arbitrarily to kill pests faster, accelerating resistance and polluting the soil, lowering efficacy and forcing yet higher doses — a vicious cycle.
Lü Mingchen, NPC deputy and deputy director of the Legislative Affairs Committee of the Shandong People’s Congress, described to fellow deputies the rampant illegal food additives he had seen during field research: “Much seafood has been soaked in acid, and adding industrial formaldehyde to dried seafood such as sea cucumber and squid is also common.” His remarks drew sighs from the deputies — over crop planting, processing, gutter oil, substandard hygiene and more.
“There must be severe punishment!” said Sun Jing, NPC deputy and deputy director of the Standing Committee of the Liaocheng People’s Congress, Shandong. She suggested raising rewards for residents who report food-safety problems, encouraging society-wide oversight of violations, dealing firmly with illegal workshops and traders, heavily fining and ordering rectification of substandard catering businesses, and revoking licences in serious cases. She noted that the NPC last year carried out enforcement inspections of the Food Safety Law’s implementation, reaching farms, tables, student canteens, inspection bodies and processing plants for whole-chain checks; attending the related meetings was both educational and confidence-building.
Xu Jingyan, NPC deputy and Party secretary of Liaocheng, Shandong, said food-safety incidents have been frequent in recent years; the relevant departments take this very seriously and have actively rectified matters, greatly improving the situation. “In Liaocheng, food safety is managed not only by the food and drug administration but with major manpower and resources from all sides. Still, safeguarding food safety remains a long road,” he said. He added that the government’s grasp of food-producing enterprises’ information is not yet accurate enough and its technical means not yet sound; facing a stream of new problems, it urgently needs to broaden management channels and methods. He suggested tilting enforcement strength towards the grassroots and increasing investment there: “Substandard products are often made in townships, streets and villages — yet it is precisely this link that lacks supervisory talent and equipment.”