"I'd rather buy bread as a meal," said Zhu Zongyuan, director of Shanghai Quality Certificate Centre of Agricultural Products, "If restaurants fail to properly wash vegetables before cooking them, these vegetables can be harmful to your health."

Zhu says, products planted from May to October are the most risky for people's health due to the more serious agricultural pest problem during this time period.

In order to improve the appearance of agricultural products, in recent years many farmers have illegally used methamidophos, which was developed for use on cotton and is forbidden for use on edible products.

This chemical helps to give produce an appealing appearance, but the residue is harmful to human health, if not thoroughly cleaned off before eaten, according to Liu Hong, director of food hygiene and safety at Shanghai Municipal Centre for Disease Control and Prevention.

The symptoms of being poisoned by such agricultural chemicals run from feeling thirsty, to weakness or vomiting.

"But what really matters is the chronic poisoning which is caused by the build-up of chemical residue in the body," Zhu added, "Symptoms from such poisoning may appear only after dozens of years and impact health gradually without being noticed."

Regulations inadequate

Actually, to maintain safety and quality standards, the State has set many regulations for agricultural products. But in the field of chemical use and remaining residue, most regulations are inadequate. Some of the State standards are 100 to 200 times lower than that of the European Union.

"That's also the reason that most Chinese agricultural products are blocked from being export to European countries, as well as Japan and the United States," Zhu said.

Comparatively speaking, river fish in the city are safer than most.

"Fresh water fish sold in the market are mostly cultivated in breeding farms," Liu said, "The water, feed and environment can be controlled which may decrease pollution exposure."

The city government has been aware of the problem for some time. Yuan Yixing, director of Shanghai Municipal Agricultural Commission once said in a working conference: "to keep food products safe and unpolluted is an urgent task".

Approximately 60 billion tons of agricultural products are consumed in Shanghai annually, according to the statistics of Shanghai Municipal Agricultural Commission. Among them, 20 billion tons are locally produced.

Efforts underway

Now the city government has launched a plan to raise the quality of food to a higher level over the coming five years. Experts have made a series of local standards of eight kinds of agricultural products such as aquatic products, pork, vegetables, edible mushrooms, fruits, rice, birds and eggs.

Standards for products such as beef, milk, oil and wheat will be released soon.

These local standards are higher than those made by the State, but they will not override State standards. The city government just wants to encourage local producers to apply for the certification to reach higher standards.

"To get the certificate is not very easy for local producers," said Zhu who is in charge of the examination.

Products must undergo rigorous tests, which examine chemical residue, veterinary residue, fish residue, heavy metal, hormone, nitrous acid, additives and microorganism.

Experts not only test finished products, but also track products from the plant to the packaging workshop. Generally, the test lasts an entire growing period up to several months.

Since last September, a total of 28 kinds of agricultural products have received safety and quality certification under the city guidelines.

To highlight their quality, the certificate centre gives each of them a small green signal.

In addition, the term of validity is three years. During the period, the centre will continue to examine these products.

"So people can be sure of their safety and quality," Zhu said.

(Shanghai Star April 11, 2002)