Mainland must restore confidence in food chain
Nothing is more damaging for a nation's health and image than unsafe food. It is a problem Beijing just does not seem to be able to come to grips with despite top-level intervention and far-reaching laws. Confidence at home and abroad remains low and has been further eroded by reports that even the most essential staple of all, rice, has been found to have been dangerously contaminated by the heavy metal cadmium. As with so much of what is wrong on the mainland, too much corruption and a lack of enforcement are mostly to blame.
No part of the food chain would seem to be immune. Production of meat, fish, vegetables, grains and their byproducts have come under scrutiny after health crises and scares. Barely a week goes by without another one being revealed. In recent months there has been fake wine and eggs, cancer-causing cooking oil, mouldy rice noodles, dyed mushrooms and dirty bean curd. Last year, the National Food Safety Regulating Work Office handled 130,000 cases.
With 1.3 billion people to be fed and a shift towards a more affluent diet under way, the production, processing, transport and retailing of food has become a massive industry with the prospect of massive profits to match. Invariably, that means there is temptation to cut corners and flout food safety and hygiene standards. Add widespread environmental pollution, as in the recent case with rice, alongside rampant corruption and the outcome can be lethal for consumers. The scandal in 2008 over milk tainted with the industrial chemical melamine to artificially boost protein levels still looms large. Amid the outcry after six children died and 300,000 were sickened, Premier Wen Jiabao promised confidence in food safety would be restored within two years. But despite a raft of laws being implemented within a year, it continues to haunt the government. Stockpiles of milk powder that should have been destroyed are still being uncovered. The mistreatment of activist Zhao Lianhai has sent the worst of messages to whistle-blowers. And Hong Kong has supply problems as mainland parents, mistrustful of stocks across the border, buy out the most popular brands from our shops.
Foreign governments have been especially wary of mainland-produced food since 2006, when more than 100 people died in Panama after taking cough medicine containing toxic diethylene glycol from China. That sparked bans and calls for better safety. Hong Kong, with 90 per cent of its food coming from across the border, is more aware than anyone else of the threat. Strict rules and regulations and a sturdy inspection regime provide a safety net.
Such measures are necessary no matter what the practices on the mainland, but they still do not dispel concern about what is being bought. Beijing has implemented tougher laws on inspections and standards and meted out death penalties to the worst offenders. With faith still so low, though, the focus has to be on the system itself. There is no shortage of problems, from a lack of transparency and a free media to a flawed legal system and absence of the rule of law to too many agencies being responsible for enforcement. With so vast a production network, inspections and testing are always going to be a challenge. Nevertheless, an advanced, increasingly urban nation must be able to provide affordable, nourishing and safe food for its population. There is no greater test of the competence of government than to ensure that what we eat does not do us harm. Restoring confidence in the human food chain must be a top priority for the authorities.
