IX-8 Question: As an old Chinese saying goes, “Food is of the utmost importance to people.” But in recent years, food safety incidents have frequently emerged in China. What's the reason behind them? What measures will the country take to provide its people with safe food?

A: It is a fundamental philosophy of the Chinese nation that “people are of the utmost importance to the state, and food is of the utmost importance to the people.” Due to the great importance attached to this issue, issues related to food have always been a major concern to the Chinese people, who were anxious about food shortages in the past. But nowadays, the focus is being shifted to safety problems, amid increasing media exposures of such scandals.

Since 1978, China's food supplies have remarkably improved in terms of quantity, diversity and nutrient conditions, while its food safety situation has made a great headway. In a populous developing country like China, its food supply system used to be dedicated to solving food scarcity. However, more risks are arising from its deficiencies in such fields as input of agricultural necessities, farming environment, animal immunization, and production, processing and marketing of agricultural products. As a result of rampant counterfeit and sub-standard food products in the market, severe food safety incidents are common. China's food safety standards, as well as relevant inspection and certification systems, also lag far behind the actual needs. More importantly, the country still doesn't have a unified food safety management system, with departments in charge of food and drug, agriculture, health, quality inspection, commerce and industrial and commercial administration all having a hand in. The overlapping of responsibilities causes both waste of administrative resources and ineffective supervision.

Food safety has a direct bearing on people's health and life, and it also influences social stability to some extent. It is a primary duty for every responsible government to guarantee its people to have easy access to safe food. China will learn from other countries to improve its food quality management and food market access systems and establish a field-to-table food certification system based on practical safety standards. The competent government agencies have also pledged to increase sampling inspections of food products and make more efforts to raise their capability to handle food emergencies. So far, there have been 5,630 institutions with a staff of 150,000 in China engaged in food inspection and testing, including 55 state-level ones. The numbers, either in absolute or per-capita terms, lead the world. On the basis of these institutions, a highly efficient food safety management system has basically taken shape.

(China.org.cn)