Study on Establishing a Perfect Food Safety System in China

The very worrying situation regarding safety in China was caused by public opinion and the current systems and policies in the country. With the systemic implementation of methods, the laws and regulations on supervising, examining and evaluating safety were analyzed step by step in order to discover the precise reasons why the unsatisfactory situation regarding safety had occurred. Finally, nine corresponding suggestions involving establishing and perfecting the safety system were put forward. Received: 29. 3. 2006 Accepted: 17. 5. 2006 Professional paper UDC: 641 (510) 1. INTRODUCTION Throughout the ages, food-stuffs have kept people on earth alive. However, the state of safety is unfortunately very worrying in China nowadays, in particular with; (1) the under-developed industry, (2) old-fashioned management, (3) insufficient safety equipment and (4) increasing contamination. So, establishing a perfect safety system is most vital and urgent. Having investigated and studied the situation, the factors of contamination have been found to be so numerous that establishing a perfect safety system will probably take a long time and could be depicted as follows. 2. ESTABLISHING A PERFECT LEGAL SYSTEM The existing Food Safety Law is believed to have little effect on other laws and regulations within the Food Safety System, the reasons for which include as follows: * Narrow regulation by the Food Safety Law: The existing Food Safety Law was considered to be narrow in application because it did not include such items of production as the course of planting, breeding and storing as well as the information on how to produce, manage and use additives and feed. Actually, the above mentioned law should have covered the process from the production to the edible stage, that is, it should have covered the whole biological chain. * Discrepancy between the jurisdiction of the Food Safety Law and the actual situation Foodstuffs have been supervised by many departments in China since the institutions around the country were reformed in 1998. These departments included the Food & Leechdom Management Bureau, the Police Ministry, the Agriculture Ministry and the Health Ministry. Moreover, the supervision from various departments has overlapped excessively thereby excluding harmony among departments. * The insufficient Food Safety system neglecting the new problems arising from society and technology Compared to the Food Safety Law in developed countries, a series of important systems ensuring including ones on safety emergency, safety evaluation and safety credit, are still non-existent in China. Furthermore and most importantly, the basic concept of safety has not yet been defined. * The lax and deficient regulations under the Food Safety Law As the Food Safety Law states, any breech against it in the course of producing must be rectified, admonished and a fine of 5000 yuan paid. The worst scenario is that anyone who refuses to rectify the situation will have their license revoked. However, unfortunately, the above regulations under the Food Safety Law are not often implemented, thus resulting in recalcitrant executives shirking their responsibilities. * The lack of systems in place to investigate recalcitrant supervisors With the establishment and perfection of the Food Safety System, the Food Safety Law should also be revised as soon as possible. Two methods could be adopted: one to replace the Food Safety Law with the Food and Health Law thereby revising the former thoroughly. The other would be to newly constitute a Food Safety Cardinal Law as a foundation in the field, including at least: * an objective to promoting and ensuring * a definition expatiating the meanings of and food safety, * a range of methods to supervise * a system regulating the basic frames and functions in the form of law, * a principle ensuring the people's health etc, * a responsibility to safety from other social organizations and groups, * an emergency system, * a standard system of examining and identifying entering markets, * an evaluation of * a credit system of * an information network on * an advertising and education system, * a commitment from industry associations and institutions, and * legal responsibility. …