Along with the biological, chemical, and physical hazards that Dr. Wu calls natural factors that can directly cause, and cannot be completely eliminated, as food safety risks, he cites human factors, most especially institutional factors and human misconduct, as additional risks.
“At present, food safety issues which are caused by human factors are prominent in China,” Dr. Wu emphasizes.
Among institutional factors are, according to Dr. Wu, producer characteristics (including, for instance, the scale of the enterprise and the producers’ education level, etc.); information asymmetry (consumers aren’t typically able to know whether producers use unsafe chemical fertilizers or pesticides or not); interest on the part of stakeholders, including farmers and entrepreneurs, as they all seek to maximize their own profits; and government regulation.
“The standards and regulations concerning food safety are not perfect in China, which may also lead to food safety risks,” Dr. Wu says. “But most especially, fraudulent and unscrupulous behavior of producers leads to food safety issues here, as was the case with melamine in 2008.”
Technology Shortcomings
The inadequacies of the existing technology support system greatly hinder food safety in China, Dr. Wu adds. “Because of freshness, perishability, and specificity of processing concerns, compounded with the high demand for circulation of food, hazardous factors may exist in all aspects of the Chinese food supply chain that can lead to food safety incidents,” he points out. “Our food safety technology security system has made great progress in China in recent years, however, because of the diversity of Chinese food and consumer culture, along with the diversity of climate across the country, the inadequacies of the food safety technology support system definitely affects food safety in China in a significant way.”
The bottom line of all of the aforementioned problems is that food safety incidents are rising in China every year, Dr. Wu says. “I believe the first step to deal with food safety issues in China is to solve the pollution problems in the areas where edible agricultural commodities are produced,” he says “This should greatly reduce food safety issues. At the same time, China needs to accelerate the establishment of a practical and efficient food safety technology support system.”
While China has its newsworthy food safety crises, Dr. Wu is quick to point out that, each year, food safety issues also occur in the U.S. and other prominent countries. “According to relevant data published by the AQSIQ, the top 10 source countries of unacceptable food imported by China in 2011 were Taiwan, the U.S., Malaysia, France, Australia, Spain, South Korea, Thailand, Vietnam, and Japan,” he says. “A total of 1,231 food batches imported from these 10 countries were found unacceptable, accounting for 67.71 percent of the total unacceptable batches in food imports in China in 2011.”
Dr. Wu says that the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) and U.S. food regulations have only a little impact on food production in China as related to China exports to the U.S. “That’s because the food export market in China is diversified,” he explains. “In 2011, China exports to the U.S. amounted to about U.S. $6 billion, which, in my opinion, is negligible.”
Major regions and countries importing food from China in 2011 were the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (U.S. $14.145 billion value, 32.09 percent of China’s food exports), the U.S. (U.S. $6.080 billion, 13.79 percent), the European Union (U.S. $4.883 billion, 11.08 percent), New Zealand (U.S. $2.447 billion, 5.55 percent), Australia (U.S. $1.975 billion, 4.48 percent), Russia (U.S. $1.672 billion, 3.79 percent), and Peru (U.S. $1.304 billion, 2.96 percent).
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