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China’s Food Safety:Challenges and Opportunities
Pei-Hwa [email protected]
Background
• Wanted to promote a natural bacteria-based fertilizer and insecticide.
• It can increase yield, improve quality, and soften soils, and has high return on investments for fruits, veggies, and teas.
• Went deep into the farm villages for trials and develop sales and channels.
Findings
• Most farms were run by independent farm families who do not (and can not) rely on farm income to make a living.
• Most young workers went to work in cities and only return during harvesting season.
• The market is one price fits all, so farmers pursue maximum weight, not quality.
• Many illicit and fake products, main culprit.
Findings
• Lack of modern agriculture knowledge• Stick with NPK• Use growth hormone or other products to
increase yield • Most Chinese soil are in poor state• Farmers don’t consume the products they sold
to market, they grow their own food separately.
Resulting in…
• Food nutrition content way down• Things don’t taste good, don’t smell good• Soil contains huge amount of chemicals• Soil depleted of minerals and organic matters
And Pollution
• Chromium creeps up in well water• Other heavy metals in water• Pollution caused by overabundant fertilizers
spilling into creeks and rivers• Air pollution
And Safety Issues
• Residues of Pesticides and Herbicides• Overuse of growth hormones and plant
growth regulators• Leaner pork and beef with clenbuterol
(banned in the US and EU,US uses ractopamine )
Fundamental Challenges
• Lack of trust and good consumer protection mechanism
• Falsified and fake products everywhere in the agriculture supply chain
• Agriculture’s long cycle time and risks (pricing, weather, natural disasters) made is not ideal for Chinese investors
Organic?
• Organic Chemistry: Study of compound or materials that contains carbon (with exceptions like diamond, cyanide, carbon dioxide) or things that can only be produced in a living organism (with exceptions too in modern day technology)
• Organic Food: Food produced without synthetic chemicals (pesticides, fertilizers, etc.)
China’s Organic Foods
• Most are not organic (personal observation)• Price too high to be popular• Consumers just want “poison-free” food
Talking Numbers
• If water and soil are not contaminated• It won’t cost too much more to grow safe and
healthy crops with modern know-how• Not using fertilizers and pesticides won’t give
you healthy crops
Where Thing Are
• Organic retailer, lohaocity.com• Country Fair / Farmers’ Market– http://site.douban.com/163893/room/1767810/
• Subscribe (and maybe work on) your own land like littledonkeyfarm.com
• Subscribe or buy online with home delivery like noahorganic.com or oabc.cc or tonysfarm.com
Opportunities
• A foreign brand assisted quality system• Safe and poison-free products instead of
organic• Localized sales and distribution system