Authoritative Interview: Nine Questions on Food Safety Hotspots

Nine Questions on Food Safety Hotspots: Interview with Zhang Yong, Director of the Office of the Food Safety Commission of the State Council Xinhuanet Beijing, May 5 (Reporters Li Bin and Zhou Tingyu) Clenbuterol, Dyeing Taro, Fake Potato Flour... Recent food safety incidents have been exposed frequently The issue of food safety has once again become the focus of public opinion.

Food is food to safety first. What is the situation of food safety in China? How should we fully understand the current food safety issues? What are the crux of food safety incidents? What kind of measures should be taken to ensure food safety?

With a series of questions, Xinhua News Agency reporter recently interviewed Zhang Yong, director of the State Council Food Safety Committee Office.

Difficulties in food safety work Q: What is the overall status of food safety in China? What are the gaps compared to developed countries?

Zhang Yong: At present, China's food safety status can be summarized as: "Overall stability is good and there are still many problems." On the one hand, the Party Central Committee and the State Council attach great importance to food safety. Governments at all levels have continuously strengthened food safety work in recent years. In particular, since 2009, from the implementation of the “two-year rectification” to the introduction of the Food Safety Law, to the establishment of the State Council’s Food Safety Committee, the work has continued to increase, with remarkable results. A number of typical cases have been investigated and dealt with, eliminating a large number of hidden risks and suppressing the high incidence of major food safety incidents. The overall food safety situation is stable and maintains its upward trend without major systemic risks.

On the other hand, we must also clearly understand that compared with the demands of the Central Government, compared with the expectations of the masses, compared with the level of the developed countries, there is still a gap between China's food safety status and level. There are still weak links in the food safety supervision system and mechanism, regulations and standards, risk monitoring, talent team, technical equipment, and corporate investment and management capabilities. Various types of food safety incidents still occur from time to time. These are also the key issues that we are trying to improve and solve.

The level of food safety in a country is closely related to its level of economic and social development. China is still a developing country, and it is also a large country with a large population and a big producer and consumer of food. However, the scale, organization and standardization of the food industry and the integrity of the industry's integrity and moral system are still relatively low. The food industry is dominated by small and medium-sized enterprises. There are a large number of small workshops, small street vendors and small restaurants. The cultivation and cultivation link is also a problem of small and scattered problems. In pig farming only, for example, there are only 70,000 U.S. pigs in the United States, and more than 67 million in China; the number of live pigs provided by 500 or more farmers in the United States accounts for 96.6% of the country's total; The amount of pigs slaughtered by the above farmers accounts for only 31.5% of the country; the market share of the four large meat companies in the United States exceeds 90%, and the share of the top 10 companies in China is less than 10%. The small scale, large number, and high degree of dispersion of producers and operators have brought great difficulties to food production quality safety management and food safety supervision.

Low “Burn Point” in Food Safety Q: According to the situation announced by the relevant departments, the passing rate of vegetables, livestock products and aquatic products in China in 2010 was above 96%. However, the common people lamented that “What else dare to eat”? What is the actual difference between the actual situation and everyone's feelings?

Zhang Yong: First of all, there are indeed many problems in the field of food safety. News media and the Internet are also reported and reflected. In general, these reports can be divided into two categories, some of which objectively reflect the existing problems, such as lean meat, dyed steamed bread, etc.; others are exaggerated or have no factual basis, such as milk, leather milk Reports of problems such as beef sauce and beef paste have been exaggerated or inaccurate. Some of these reports are concentrated in a short period of time and are prone to amplification effects. After the people read it, they often believe in truth and anxiety, and they naturally have the idea of ​​“what else to dare to eat”.

Food safety is directly related to people's health. Everyone cares and the "burning point" is very low. It is understandable that there are concerns about food safety that people see all kinds of information, whether true or false. However, it should be noted that China’s current food safety is generally guaranteed. This is no way to cover up contradictions and whitewash. More than 1.3 billion people in the country consume 2 million tons of food, vegetables, meat and other food every day. There are more than 400,000 food production companies, 3.23 million food business owners, 2.1 million food and beverage units, more than 200 million farmers, animal husbandry and fishermen. Workshops, small vendors, and small restaurants are huge. Food safety incidents have occurred from time to time, but the proportion of such food and production operators is so small that the food safety situation is generally stable. If we put together some point-by-point and individual issues, it is inaccurate and unobjective to say that it is an overall and universal issue. In fact, the World Health Organization, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization and other international agencies have highly praised China's achievements in food safety. The per capita life expectancy of Chinese citizens is getting higher and higher. It has exceeded 73 years old and ranks first in the developing countries. Some regions have even reached the level of developed countries. This is to a large extent also due to the continuous improvement of China's food security and safety standards. It is difficult to achieve this achievement if food safety is poor and food-borne diseases are frequently occurring on a large scale.

Ninety-six percent of food qualifications are not all qualified. Even if there are only 1% of the problems, we must pay 100% of our efforts. Although the proportion of unqualified foods detected is low, the absolute amount is not small. Therefore, there must be no slack in food safety work. At present, while we are fully engaged in all aspects of food safety supervision, we must further increase the work of popularizing science and education in food safety. On the one hand, we must vigorously increase the ability of the whole society to recognize fakes and prevent risks, and on the other Timely clarification of false rumors, eliminate unnecessary doubts, enhance people's confidence, and guide the public to scientifically understand the current food safety situation.

Food safety incidents affect individuals, societies, and countries Q: What are the hazards of food safety incidents?

Zhang Yong: The food safety incident is very harmful. Here are three main aspects. The first and most serious harm is the harm to the health of the people. Three meals a day are indispensable. The safety of food is directly related to everyone's health and even life safety. There was a problem with the food in the stomach, and the severity of the damage was self-evident.

The second is the impact on the economy and people's livelihood. For instance, after the Sanlu incident, the whole industry cut production and production stopped, tens of thousands of workers were laid off, and more than 2.4 million dairy farmers slaughtered cattle and poured milk. The employment and income of a large number of urban and rural residents were affected. In 2009, the import of dairy products in China soared from 350,000 tons in 2008 to 597,000 tons. The vitality of the domestic dairy industry has not been fully restored. Since then, a certain brand of imported powdered milk has risen in price three times in one year, and each time it has increased by 10% to 15%, and consumers have also paid a heavy price for it.

The third is the impact on the government’s credibility and national image. Food safety incidents occurred in succession, which greatly affected people's consumer confidence, severely impacted the social integrity and moral system, and even affected the government's credibility. Some food safety incidents also involve overseas, which has adversely affected our image and foreign trade.

The rapid development of food industry security incidents in multiple periods Q: From the food safety legislation to the establishment of the State Council Food Safety Commission, we must pay attention to food safety, but food safety problems still occur frequently. What is the crux of the problem?

Zhang Yong: The central government attaches great importance to food safety. Last year, the State Council Food Safety Committee of the State Council, which is headed by three leaders of the State Council Ren Zheng and deputy directors and members of 21 departments, has set up an office. Since its establishment, the State Council Food Safety Commission has held plenary meetings and national video and telephone conferences for many times to organize and coordinate regional and relevant departments to conduct in-depth rectification, severely investigate and punish food safety violations, strengthen the establishment of long-term effective mechanisms, and constantly improve the regulatory system. Block regulatory loopholes, promote the emergency handling capacity of food safety, and comprehensive supervision to obtain greater improvement. It should be said that China's food safety supervision system is currently at a stage of speeding up soundness and improvement. In the next step, the work of the State Council’s food safety committee will focus on addressing outstanding issues in the field of food safety and governance's deep-seated conflicts affecting food safety. At the same time, it will further strictly supervise the implementation of the responsibilities of all regulatory agencies and localities, make overall plans for the development of regulatory capacity, and establish complete supervision. The pattern will promote the sustained and stable improvement of China's food safety situation.

But we must also be soberly aware that solving the food safety problem cannot be accomplished in one battle and it takes a longer process. The main reasons are:

First, the food industry is developing rapidly, but the low threshold, scattered distribution, and small-scale conditions are difficult to completely change in the short term, which seriously restricts the improvement of food safety. The food industry in China has been accompanied by rapid economic development. After more than 30 years of reform and opening up, we have followed the path taken by other countries over hundreds of years. Others have encountered and solved many problems in succession for a long period of time. We are here for a short time. Gathered and revealed within.

Second, the quality of employees is uneven, the responsibility of corporate entities is not fully implemented, and the establishment of an industry integrity moral system is lagging behind. The market competition in the food industry is extremely fierce, and disorderly competition and malicious competition are common. Many companies, especially small workshops, have insufficient safety inputs and weak management capabilities. A small number of employees lack morality and honesty, which are important for frequent food safety incidents. the reason.

Third, relative to the rapid development of the food industry and the rapid changes in the structure of food consumption, the ability of safety supervision has not been able to keep pace. Since the beginning of reform and opening up, the living standards of urban and rural residents in China have substantially improved, achieving a historic leap from inadequate food and clothing to overall well-to-do level. The total amount and types of food consumption have grown rapidly. The degree of attention to food safety has increased, and food safety policies and regulations The construction of standards, risk management networks, supervision teams, and technical equipment all need to be strengthened.

Fourth, the cost of food safety violations and crimes is not high, and disciplinary deterrence still needs to be increased. This issue has been improved in the just passed Criminal Law Amendment (8). In the past, violations of the law in the field of food safety have mainly been convicted in accordance with the consequences, and now it is possible to convict a crime if there is clear action, thereby increasing the crackdown on food safety violations and crimes.

The above shows that food safety issues have emerged at this stage and have deep-seated reasons, some of which are inextricably linked with the current stage of economic and social development. Although these issues are complex, they are not without solutions. They can be resolved through systemic measures and measures. For more than one hundred years, the food safety of developed countries such as the United States has also gone through a process of chaos, governance, and frequent containment of security incidents. There are many lessons and lessons that can be learned and used by us to promote us. The level of food safety can be improved faster.

Intensifying Supervision and Emphasis on Media Supervision Q: Why do so many problems are discovered by the media first, and supervision and investigation seems to always be after media coverage? We monitor the use of sampling methods. Why do we not detect them one by one?

Zhang Yong: This argument is not very accurate. What I would like to say is that in 2010, all levels of the country's supervisory authorities took the initiative to inspect more than 35 million food production and business units, and there were a large number of inspections for small vendors, small workshops, and small restaurants that could not be accurately counted. The 130,000 cases of large or small food safety violations were discovered by the media in a very small number. After many cases were investigated and announced by the regulatory authorities, the relevant media followed up with reports, such as the recent case of fake potato flour and last year's problem of milk powder. After investigating and treating the “lean meat essence” incident in Henan Province, due to the large amount of people's consumption of meat foods, the company focused on preventing risks to the greatest extent and organized comprehensive and in-depth inspections across the country. The practice of systematic and risk-prevention measures in this case is an actual measure to continuously strengthen supervision.

At the same time, there are also some problems. After the media discovers and reports first, the supervision department organizes investigations. This fully embodies the importance of media supervision, and the regulatory authorities will further strengthen communication with news media to continuously improve the effectiveness of supervision. What needs to be explained is that we do not agree that under the circumstance that the nature, harm, and influence of the incident have not yet been verified and verified, individual people will have the word “carcinogenic,” “fatal,” and “very toxic” on the food safety issues that arise. It is not appropriate for the headlines to report and even fabricate fake news without facts, causing public panic. This irresponsible approach is not appropriate.

Sampling is a common practice adopted by all countries in the world, including developed countries. Because there are too many kinds of foods, huge quantities, and complicated formats, each food is tested one by one, and no country can afford it and can do it. In fact, sampling inspection has been proved to be a scientific method. Its accuracy, validity, and economy are guaranteed. The key is to do it carefully, practically, and according to requirements. In the next stage, the supervision department will further improve the sampling inspection system and methods, encrypt the sampling frequency of key varieties, key enterprises, and key projects, and establish inspection systems for key industries to ensure the timely detection of all kinds of food safety risks. Of course, it does not rule out the detection of certain foods in a specific period or area.

Solving the problem of illegal addition is "bovine nose"

Question: From the current analysis of food safety incidents, what are the most prominent problems in China's food safety? What are the important measures for solving these problems this year?

Zhang Yong: At present, the most prominent problem is the illegal addition of non-edible substances and abuse of food additives. Melamine, lean meat, and dyeing steamed bread are all typical cases of illegal addition. Originally, the legal use of food additives in accordance with the law is conducive to enriching food types, improving food nutrition and ensuring food supply. However, some lawbreakers have become oblivious to justice and illegally added non-edible substances or even toxic and hazardous substances or abused food additives in food production and management, which seriously endangered people's health and life safety. A series of food safety incidents in recent years are mostly related to this.

Illegal additions pose the risk of causing widespread and systematic harm. Therefore, the very important task for food safety this year is to expedite the resolution of the illegal addition and abuse of additives. This is also the “nest of the nose” of current food safety work. The State Council recently convened a nationwide video-telephone conference to conduct deployment. The General Office of the State Council also issued a circular, emphasizing that strict headings should be used and that code-breaking orders should be adopted. Resolute attitudes, strong measures, and greater efforts should be used to carry out in-depth rectification and effectively solve problems. This is a prominent issue that affects food safety. It should be said that solving the problem of illegal addition is a big determination. We must adhere to the end and achieve results, and resolutely curb the momentum of illegal additions and abuse of additives. Personnel and enterprises engaged in illegal additions will be given administrative and criminal penalties in strict accordance with the law. Those units and individuals that do not effectively organize investigations and go through the courts or perform duties in supervision and inspection must be strictly investigated for responsibilities. Suspected crimes must be transferred to the judicial organs for criminal responsibility.

In addition to severely cracking down on the illegal addition and abuse of additives, five key varieties such as dairy products, edible oils, health foods, fresh meat and meat products, alcoholic beverages, etc. have been comprehensively managed this year. For these foods, the average daily consumption of the people is large, and once the problems occur, the harm and influence are also great. We believe that through perseverance and perseverance, we will continue to accumulate experience and improve the system in the process of advancing special rectification and resolving outstanding issues. We will be able to better prevent food safety problems and steadily improve food safety. Overall level.

Corporate integrity and industry self-regulation are the basis for food safety Q: The well-known companies such as Sanlu and Shuanghui have developed food safety problems, and they have dyed their heads to enter a well-known supermarket chain. What does this show? What measures should be taken to solve these problems?

Zhang Yong: These incidents further sounded the alarm. On the one hand, it shows that our food safety supervision system really needs improvement. The length of supervision chain and links are numerous, and there are problems with multiple outages, unclear responsibilities, and poor convergence. Testing and inspection methods are not strong, grass-roots regulatory power is weak, and individual law enforcement personnel are not supervised and even self-defembart laws. All these problems need to be resolved as soon as possible. solve. On the other hand, the occurrence of these events highlights the importance of implementing the responsibility of the producers and operators. Food that is truly safe and secure is produced and processed. Therefore, not only should supervision and inspection be strengthened, but more importantly, the main responsibility of the producer and operator must be strictly enforced, so that the enterprise can be honest and the industry should be self-discipline. This is the cornerstone of food safety. In this regard, there are still some more prominent problems, such as small and scattered enterprises, insufficient investment in safety, weak management capabilities, and weak sense of integrity, and even a small number of enterprises even deliberately evade supervision and crimes.

To solve these problems, on the one hand, we need to make efforts in improving the regulatory system, implementing the responsibilities of the supervisory authorities, and improving the monitoring and inspection capabilities. On the other hand, efforts should be made to improve the policies and mechanisms for enterprises to increase their investment in safety, and urge enterprises to fully implement the relevant systems, standards, and norms, strictly enforce market access, improve the integrity and moral system, and ensure that the food safety management standards of producers and operators are consistently upheld. Strengthen the source of governance, promote the optimization and upgrading of the food industry, support high-quality enterprises, eliminate poor quality companies, and vigorously develop agricultural production bases, field farms, and lay a solid foundation for food safety. At the same time, it is necessary to do a good job of publicizing and educating food producers and operators, and enhance their business acumen of honesty and law-abiding business management and quality and safety management. It is necessary to further intensify the crackdown on food safety violations and crimes, and greatly increase the illegal and criminal costs of lawless elements.

In short, we must start from various aspects such as self-discipline, supervision, policy, legal system, and education, so that food producers and traders “will not break the law, dare not break the law, cannot break the law, and cannot commit crimes” and fundamentally reverse the weak food safety foundation. situation.

Strictly punish the law-breakers in the supervision team. Q: In reality, there are some problems that can be monitored without supervision or even law-breaking violations. What do you think?

Zhang Yong: In reality, there are problems with the quality of individual regulatory law enforcement personnel, sluggish enforcement, and law enforcement violations. Prior to the investigation of the "lean meat" incident in Henan, it was discovered that there were supervisory personnel and criminals who were in the same breath, collaborated internally and externally, and gave up supervision and received money for release. To be upright and to be the first person, it is necessary to severely punish those who violate laws and regulations in the law enforcement team. In this regard, all parties concerned have a high degree of consensus. The Criminal Law Amendment (8) separately listed the criminal responsibility for food safety supervision and misconduct. The Supreme People's Procuratorate recently issued a notice on severely punishing food safety crimes and related official crimes. The discipline inspection and supervision department attaches great importance to the administrative accountability of food safety cases. In Henan Province, 126 people were arrested after the “Clean Claw” incident, of which 37 were civil servants. After the “problem milk powder” series of cases occurred in Hebei and Shanxi provinces last year, the disciplinary inspection and supervision departments quickly dealt with 53 public officials who were responsible.

Seeking truth from facts, there are only a few black sheep. The vast majority of law enforcement officers in food safety supervision are good, and they are performing their duties with due diligence. The relevant parties will further strengthen the construction of supervision teams, especially grass-roots supervisory teams, improve technical equipment, strengthen education and training, and continuously enhance their sense of responsibility and law enforcement. At the same time, they must organize timely and timely efforts for groups and individuals that have made outstanding achievements in supervision and law enforcement and have made outstanding contributions. Recognition and publicity to encourage advancement, promote uprightness, and increase the credibility of regulatory enforcement.

Regulatory responsibility is more important than Mount Tai to create a good environment Q: You just said that the field of food safety is in a period of frequent incidents. What are the main measures we should take to expedite this period of time and improve food safety?

Zhang Yong: The problem did not occur one or two days. The solution to the problem cannot be accomplished overnight. However, we must do everything possible to shorten the time for resolving problems, narrow the gap with the developed countries as soon as possible, and strive to change the conditions of weak food safety and frequent incidents as soon as possible. Doing a good job of food safety is an important embodiment of the implementation of the scientific development concept. It is an inevitable requirement for building a socialist harmonious society. The central government attaches great importance to it and the people are very concerned about it. We can say that food safety supervision responsibility is more important than Mount Tai. To this end, it is necessary to speed up the improvement of institutional mechanisms, constantly improve the ability to supervise, solve outstanding problems in a timely manner, and promote the continuous and stable improvement of the food security situation. With regard to the current and next steps of the key work, in addition to the previously mentioned, there are mainly the following points:

The first is to improve the regulatory system mechanism. According to the requirements of the division of labor and unified coordination, and the principle of clear and streamlined functions, we must speed up and improve the food safety supervision system, and actively promote the establishment of a comprehensive and coordinated mechanism at all levels in order to further strengthen coordination and cooperation among departments and regions. Links, plugging loopholes, sharing resources, forming a joint force, and effectively avoiding unclear responsibilities after the discovery of the problem, affect the investigation.

The second is to effectively improve the level of corporate integrity and the quality of employees. Vigorously conduct self-discipline education and food safety knowledge training, accelerate the development of the industry's integrity and moral system, give full play to the role of industry associations, and guide and restrict business integrity and law-abiding businesses. Promote the food industry to take a large-scale, intensive development path, improve the quality of the industry, and create favorable conditions for the fundamental improvement of the food safety situation.

The third is to strengthen the supervision of food safety capabilities. Accelerate the improvement of food safety standards and strengthen risk monitoring and assessment. Increase investment, lay a solid foundation, improve inspection and testing capabilities, establish and improve a quality and safety traceability system, improve the supervision of law enforcement teams, and improve the level of technical equipment. According to the unified deployment, we are organizing the preparation of the national food safety supervision and management system during the “12th Five-Year Plan” period. We believe that the implementation of this plan will play a positive role in promoting the improvement of the supervision system and the improvement of supervision capabilities.

Fourth, severely punish food safety violations and crimes according to law. Maintaining a high-pressure situation in combating food safety violations and crimes has made severe punishment a high-hanging sword. Including producers and law enforcement officers, whoever violates the law, must severely punish severely in accordance with the law, making criminals pay high fees or even The price that can't be afforded is really shocking.

Fifth, establish a good atmosphere of public opinion. Food safety issues involve sensitive issues. It is necessary to improve the communication and communication mechanism with the media, give full play to the role of media supervision, and support and guide the media to report objectively and accurately. Increase the popularization of science popularization, increase public awareness of scientific consumption and false identification, and prevent risk, so that each consumer is also a supervisor. Actively encourage reporting and implement the reward and protection system for informants.

Sixth, improve emergency response capabilities. Improve the emergency response mechanism for food safety incidents, strengthen risk monitoring, improve the early warning network, and take the initiative to prevent and early intervention so as to achieve early detection, early reporting, and early disposal, and strive to minimize the impact and impact. Timely check and dispose of relevant incidents, respond to social concerns, and eliminate public concerns.

I believe that through the unremitting efforts of all parties, the food safety situation in China will continue to improve and will eventually lead to a fundamental improvement.