Opinion

Long-term food safety

(China Daily)
Updated: 2011-05-18 13:52

No doubt about it, Beijing is worried about food safety. The contagious popular discontent over the authorities' competence in safeguarding the national food chain, if left unattended, will inevitably brew new troubles more difficult to cope with.

So official voices against irregularities in the food industry sound harsh. Vice-Premier Li Keqiang, who heads the State Council Committee for Food Safety, said there has to be maximum deterrence against violations, so that perpetrators will shudder at the thought of being caught.

And, as always, local levels have been quick to pick up the message. A number of places have reportedly incorporated food safety as a key factor in the appraisal of officials' performance. And special campaigns are being introduced to address the most hated phenomenon of food additives abuse.

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This in some ways demonstrates the effectiveness of the country's mobilization mechanisms - such responses send Beijing the reassuring message that the system works and their words count. We can anticipate what will happen next - wrongdoers will be uncovered and punished as an example to others and to illustrate success of the campaign.

There is no denying target-specific campaigns, which are exactly what we have seen from local governments these days regarding food safety, are effective in many ways - they always serve to suppress the incidence of violations. But our reservation concerning this pattern of response centers more on its long-term efficacy.

We have come across numerous similar campaigns over the years, yet few have produced a long-term solution in the target areas. Not that the crackdowns lacked severity. But those who were not caught red-handed - not to mention potential violators - wait for the storm to blow over, safe in the knowledge that things will return to "normal" afterward.

Fixed-term campaigns fail to reassure us about safety concerns because they seldom touch upon the root causes. No matter how severely they are implemented and acted upon, little is achieved to strengthen the quality guarantee regime. Take the repeated recurrence of melamine in food products for instance, we continue to be pestered by the health-threatening chemical even after three years of promises and crackdowns.

Given the pervasiveness of food safety abuses, many of us are in favor of a new round of "severe crackdowns". But if bankruptcy and death penalties have failed to intimidate melamine abusers into behaving, we had better not lay our hopes for safe food on the punishment of a few wrongdoers.

The updated list and standards of food additives plugged an obvious loophole in our food safety guarantee network and Vice-Premier Li's remarks have convinced us of a strong political will at the top of the national political hierarchy. But beyond this, we need an extensive review of the guarantee mechanisms to rationalize the division of work among government watchdogs.