China's Contaminated Food Woes Expand Overseas
Pastor Dale Morgan
Apr 12, 6:50 PM EDT
*China's Contaminated Food Woes Expand Overseas*
By CHRISTOPHER BODEEN
Associated Press Writer
SHANGHAI, China (AP) -- The list of Chinese food exports rejected at
American ports reads like a chef's nightmare: pesticide-laden pea pods,
drug-laced catfish, filthy plums and crawfish contaminated with salmonella.
Yet, it took a much more obscure item, contaminated wheat gluten, to
focus U.S. public attention on a very real and frightening fact: China's
chronic food safety woes are now an international concern.
In recent weeks, scores of cats and dogs in America have died of kidney
failure blamed on eating pet food containing gluten from China that was
tainted with melamine, a chemical used in plastics, fertilizers and
flame retardants. While humans aren't believed at risk, the incident has
sharpened concerns over China's food exports and the limited ability of
U.S. inspectors to catch problem shipments.
"This really shows the risks of food purity problems combining with
international trade," said Michiel Keyzer, director of the Center for
World Food Studies at Amsterdam's Vrije Universiteit.
Just as with manufactured goods, exports of meat, produce, and processed
foods from China have soared in recent years, prompting outcries from
foreign farm sectors that are feeling pinched by low Chinese prices.
Worried about losing access to foreign markets and stung by tainted food
products scandals at home, China has in recent years tried to improve
inspections, with limited success.
The problems the government faces are legion. Pesticides and chemical
fertilizers are used in excess to boost yields while harmful antibiotics
are widely administered to control disease in seafood and livestock.
Rampant industrial pollution risks introducing heavy metals into the
food chain.
Farmers have used cancer-causing industrial dye Sudan Red to boost the
value of their eggs and fed an asthma medication to pigs to produce
leaner meat. In a case that galvanized the public's and government's
attention, shoddy infant formula with little or no nutritional value has
been blamed for causing severe malnutrition in hundreds of babies and
killing at least 12.
China's Health Ministry reported almost 34,000 food-related illnesses in
2005, with spoiled food accounting for the largest number, followed by
poisonous plants or animals and use of agricultural chemicals.
With China increasingly intertwined in global trade, Chinese exporters
are paying a price for unsafe practices. Excessive antibiotic or
pesticide residues have caused bans in Europe and Japan on Chinese
shrimp, honey and other products. Hong Kong blocked imports of turbot
last year after inspectors found traces of malachite green, a possibly
cancer-causing chemical used to treat fungal infections, in some fish.
One source of the problem is China's fractured farming sector, comprised
of small landholdings which make regulation difficult, experts said.
Small farms ship to market with little documentation. Testing of the
safety and purity of farm products such as milk is often haphazard,
hampered by fuzzy lines of authority among regulators. Only about 6
percent of agricultural products were considered pollution-free in 2005,
while safer, better quality food officially stamped as "green" accounts
for just 1 percent of the total, according to figures compiled by the
U.S. Department of Agriculture.
For foreign importers, the answer is to know your suppliers and test
thoroughly, food industry experts said.
"You just have to hope that your system is strong enough and your
producers are careful enough," said Todd Meyer, China director for the
U.S. Grains Council.
Health Ministry officials acknowledge problems, but have described
scandals such as the 2004 baby formula deaths as isolated incidents.
Neither the ministry nor the State Administration of Quality
Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, responsible for overall food
safety standards, responded to questions submitted to them in writing as
requested.
Over the past 25 years, Chinese agricultural exports to the U.S. surged
nearly 20-fold to $2.26 billion last year, led by poultry products,
sausage casings, shellfish, spices and apple juice.
Inspectors from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration are able to
inspect only a tiny percentage of the millions of shipments that enter
the U.S. each year.
Even so, shipments from China were rejected at the rate of about 200 per
month this year, the largest from any country, compared to about 18 for
Thailand, and 35 for Italy, also big exporters to the U.S., according to
data posted on the FDA's Web site.
Chinese products are bounced for containing pesticides, antibiotics and
other potentially harmful chemicals, and false or incomplete labeling
that sometimes omits the producer's name.
To protect its foreign markets, China is trying to set up a dedicated
export supply chain, sealed off from the domestic market, said Keyzer.
Systems for tracking and tracing vegetables have been set up, although
doing so for meat products is harder, he said.
Large producers targeting foreign markets have also moved to gain
greater control over supplies by expanding their operations instead of
buying from individual farmers.
The tainted pet food scandal is likely to increase this momentum. More
than 100 brands of pet foods and treats have been recalled, one of the
largest pet food recalls in history. Menu Foods was the first of at
least six companies to recall pet food, beginning in mid-March, after
reported cases of cats and dogs developing kidney failure after eating
the affected products.
How the contaminated wheat gluten got into the product cycle is not yet
known. The gluten was traced to a company outside Shanghai, Xuzhou
Anying Biologic Technology Development Co.
The company and the government's inspection and quarantine
administration are investigating. But a company sales manager, Geng
Xiujuan, said Xuzhou Anying was only a middleman, buying the gluten,
commonly used as a thickener in pet food, from companies in neighboring
provinces and selling it to a separate trading company.
While no investigation results have been announced, industry experts
said they suspect the gluten might have been contaminated by having been
processed or stored in machines or containers also used for melamine.
Such anomalies show just how difficult it is to ensure purity, they said.
"It's just really hard to test for everything," Meyer said.