|
Archives
Wao Lao Ji could receive huge fine by violating new food safety law
Stricter Food Safety Law Stimulates the Demand for Food Safety Products in China
Chinese Food Safety in the New Era
After June 1, 2009, China will replace the Food Hygiene Law which took effect in 1995 with the new Food Safety Law approved by the Standing Committee of China’s National People’s Congress on Feb. 28, 2009. “Thirteen Chinese government departments have a hand in food safety currently,” said Wu Yongning, Deputy Director of China's National Institute of Nutrition and Food Safety.
China's Health Ministry is to take the lead in the implementation of the new law. Responsibility for food safety will be divided among the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, the State Food and Drug Administration and the ministries of health, agriculture, commerce and industry.
- The Health Ministry handles food safety monitoring, evaluation and investigation of food safety emergencies, and is also responsible for the general coordination of departments and promotion of local health authority reform.
- The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology is responsible for creating a credit record system among food manufacturers and strengthening self-discipline in the food industry.
- The Agriculture Ministry will take effective measures to secure the quality and safety of farm produce at its source and promote standardized agricultural production.
- The State Administration for Industry and Commerce is responsible for regular inspections of retail and wholesale markets and the establishment of a long-term supervision system for food distribution.
- The General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ) along with the State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA) deals mainly with producers’ access to the industry and the market. The SFDA will also conduct large inspections of sanitation at restaurants.
The new legislation also establishes a state-level food safety commission to improve monitoring, beef up safety standards, and recall substandard products. Additionally, a joint group consisting of nine departments had been founded to deal with nationwide food safety supervision.
Currently, China has two food safety laws and standards: one is the Food Quality Law, which is the governing law of Food Quality Standard; the other is the Food Hygiene Law, which is the governing law of National Food Hygienic Standards. Some of the food quality standards do not coincide the hygiene standards. According to the new law, China will set up one set of food safety standards, covering a wide range of issues from the use of additives to safety and nutrition labels. A compulsory system to recall substandard food is also written in the law.
Under the new law, companies can only use the food additives approved by health authorities as safe and necessary in food production. If businesses are found producing or selling substandard foodstuffs, consumers can ask for financial compensation ten times the price of the product, in addition to compensation for the harm the product causes to the consumer. Those whose food production licenses are revoked due to illegal conduct will be banned from doing food business for five years.
The new law requires producers of farm products to abide by food safety standards when using pesticides, fertilizer, growth regulators, veterinary drugs, feedstuffs, and feed additives. They must also keep farming or breeding records.
Although the new Food Safety Law is a big step to restore confidence in food products and ingredients made in China, there is still a long way to go. One of the root factors causing food safety issues is the lack of food source control. China has more than 200 million farmers who raise poultry, duck, swine and fish, and this type of scattered small scale food production is hard for authorities to monitor and control for food contamination at the source. Another concern is that since the sample survey of food products will be at no cost to manufacturers under the new law, it may cause problems in local certification stations that used to make a good living by charging food manufacturers for doing sample surveys.
There are over 500,000 food production and processing enterprises across China, but only 5% of total food companies have achieved economies of scale in production and the vast majority of them employ just 10 or fewer people. A U.N. report last year said the challenge of overseeing these small businesses is one of China's biggest hurdles in ensuring food safety. In a press conference on March 2, 2009, the Chief of the Agricultural Product Quality Control Bureau of Ministry of Agriculture indicated that advancing the shift of production mode and encouraging industrialization of operations is a way to solve food safety issues in the long run.
Last but not least, food safety issues will not be solved by the government alone. There are lots of intermediate links from the farm to the fork, and China should have a more comprehensive plan to include government, farmers, food manufacturers, distributors, wholesalers, customers, certification companies, and science and research agencies to improve food quality and ensure food safety.
February 2009 Newsletter
National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) announced an increase of average minimum purchase price of paddy rice by 16% in 2009
(1/25/2009)
China’s State Council has opted to continue to offer a minimum floor price on their rice purchases, apparently designed to incentivize production.. China’s State Council has approved the minimum purchase prices as follows: the minimum purchase price of early, middle-season and late long-grain nonglutinous rice in year 2009 is 90 CNY, 92 CNY and 95 CNY per 50 kg respectively, which all are increased by 13 CNY per 50 kg from year 2008.
NDRC and MOF issued a notice removing the fertilizer price control
(1/24/2009)
National Development and Reform Commission and Ministry of Finance jointly issued a notice effective January 25 to free up domestic fertilizer prices while maintaining price controls on input costs for fertilizer production and holding fertilizer taxes at the same level. Price controls will still apply to potash fertilizer, largely a big ticket import item. It looks to us like another sign that China is going for self-sufficiency in these hard economic times.
State-owned grain enterprises reported a total profit of 2.09 billion CNY in 2008
(1/28/2009)
The State Administration for Grain reports that state-owned grain enterprises showed an official profit oft 2.09 billion CNY in 2008 over 2007, an increase of 1174% compared with 2007 according to preliminary statistics based on facilities in 19 provinces, including Beijing, Tianjin, Jilin, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, Fujian, Jiangxi, Shandong, Henan, Hubei, Hunan, Guangdong, Sichuan, Yunnan, Shanxi, Qinghai, Xinjiang, and Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps reported profits.
In 2008, State-owned grain enterprises purchased 170.4 billion kg of grains through varieties of channels, accounting for 58% of total grain purchases within China. . State grain transactions registered an official profit of 167 million Yuan in 2007 for the first time since 1961.
China’s carbon offset pipeline continues to increase with another 94 projects reaching validation stage at the start of 2009.
China, the largest market for UN-backed Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) projects, has had 94 carbon offset ventures reach validation stage since this past December. The figure is a slight decrease from the 130 projects added in the final months of 2008. Overall, China accounted for over 40% of all CDMs worldwide that have recently reached the validation stage. The three biggest project types have been hydro (28%), wind (26%) and energy efficiency (20%), with the latter focused on heavy industries like steel and cement production.
In the agriculture space, thirteen projects have come up for validation with the majority involving the use of agricultural residues like rice husks for biomass energy creation. The total expected Carbon Emissions Reduction (CER) credits expected from these new agri-related offsets are 7.4 million through 2012 or roughly 17.5% of the total amount of CERs projected for all of the new projects slated for validation. This is a significant up tick from the end of 2008 when ag-related CDMs accounted for less than 6% of the total amount of CERs related to new projects.
More importantly, given China’s estimated 14,000 concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) and the European Commission’s call for large developing countries to create their own national cap and trade carbon schemes, we see ample opportunity for China and perspective carbon investors to diversify their portfolio by targeting the agribusiness sector. Specifically, GIC sees great potential in helping ag-related firms to develop, value and market carbon emissions reducing technologies that can create measurable emissions reductions and generate new revenue streams through licensing and securing carbon offset credits.
1] Nierenberg, Danielle. (2005). WorldWatch Paper #171: Happier meals: Rethinking the global meat industry. “Country Study #3: China.” Page 38.
|
