Shandong Province, a major farm agricultural exporter in east
China, has published planting standards for 16 types of exported
agricultural products aimed at meeting the quality requirements of
importing countries, said a provincial agricultural official.
The standards on spinach, scallions, garlic, tomatoes, ginger
and other items were set on the basis of the import standards of
the United States, Europe, Japan and the Republic of Korea over the
past three years, said Yang Luyong, deputy director of the
international cooperation office of the Shandong Provincial
Agricultural Department.
The standards stipulate in details the selection of planting
fields and the use of fertilizers and pesticides, the official
said.
"The introduction of the standards will help reduce
quality-related hurdles that China's exported agricultural products
encounter due to previously non-standard production processes,"
Yang said.
The standards have been adopted by 82 exporting companies around
the province with a total planting area of 420,000 hectares. Nine
of these standards would be promulgated nationally among about 200
million farmers next year, according to Yang.
Shandong's farm exports account for around one-fourth of the
country's total each year. In the first half of 2007, the province
exported 4.25 billion US dollars of farm produce, a year-on-year
rise of 18.2 percent.
The China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of
Foodstuffs, Native Produce and Animal By-Products estimates farm
exports will rise 18 to 20 percent year-on-year in 2007, to about
35 billion US dollars.
China's industries have been hit in recent years by reports
about substandard products, especially food, such as vegetables
containing pesticide residue and fish and animal feed containing
poisonous chemicals.
Following these incidents, the government began a four-month
special campaign nationwide on Aug. 23 to improve product quality
and food safety and introduced a food recall system on Aug. 31.
Li Changjiang, the General Administration of Quality
Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine director, said: "The
building of credit systems should assume an important position in
developing food industry." He added that product quality "reflects
man's morality and quality. Producers and dealers should be
responsible for the people."
Li made his comments on Thursday during a quality inspection
tour in Nanjing, capital of eastern Jiangsu Province.
At the end of last month, the State Council approved, in
principle, a draft law on food safety to address "weak points" in
food production, processing, delivery, storage and sales.
(Xinhua News Agency December 28, 2007)
