Suspending the Collection of Quarantine Fees for Animals and Animal Products Is Highly Beneficial

The Ministry of Finance and the National Development and Reform Commission recently issued a notice stating that starting from November this year, 37 administrative and institutional charges will be uniformly cancelled and suspended nationwide, including the suspension of quarantine fees for animals and animal products. The notice also pointed out that various unreasonable charge items must be cancelled and all kinds of arbitrary charges resolutely banned. It can be predicted that once the suspension is implemented, it will certainly bring benefits to the livestock industry.

⟦NL> For a long time, animal health supervision agencies at all levels across the country, in order to strengthen the quarantine and supervision of animals and animal products, have carried out origin quarantine, slaughter quarantine and post-storage quarantine in accordance with the law, and collected a certain amount of quarantine fees as stipulated, playing a major role in ensuring the safety of livestock and poultry food and safeguarding human health.

However, with the development of society and the deepening of reform, collecting quarantine fees for animals and animal products has in some cases also brought certain pressure to the relatively low-profit livestock industry. A small number of practitioners, in order to save this fee, racked their brains: some directly evaded quarantine, some used improper means to pull strings, and some even forged quarantine certificates, stopping at nothing. This not only makes it difficult to ensure the quality of livestock and poultry products at the source, bringing serious hidden dangers to food safety, but has even bred some illegal and corrupt behavior.

This time, the relevant national departments, acting in response to the times and changing with the situation, require that starting from November the collection of quarantine fees for animals and animal products be suspended. This will effectively reduce the costs in the circulation of livestock products, help lighten the economic burden on breeding and slaughtering practitioners, and raise their conscientiousness in accepting supervision and their enthusiasm for declaring quarantine. In addition, suspending the collection of quarantine fees for animals and animal products, in a sense, can also dispel the idea among certain lawbreakers of “making a profit from it,” leaving ugly practices such as compulsory charges, arbitrary charges and disguised charges with nowhere to hide, and demonstrating the social, service-oriented and public-interest nature of quarantine work.

The key to establishing a system lies in implementation. No matter how good a policy is, only when it is put into practice can it exert its greatest effect. The author believes that it can be standardized and emphasized from the following aspects.

First, through various forms that people enjoy, strengthen publicity on policies related to the suspension of quarantine fees for animals and animal products, enhance the understanding of quarantine work among farms (households), processing enterprises and consumers, attract all sectors of society to pay attention and participate together, and form a powerful joint force for jointly improving the level of livestock and poultry food safety.

Second, in accordance with the spirit of the notice, formulate in advance relevant early-warning mechanisms for suspending the collection of quarantine fees for animals and animal products, so as to arrange early, deploy early and act early, take preventive measures, and thereby better respond to various problems that may be encountered when this work is fully rolled out, and improve work efficiency and quality.

Third, effectively strengthen the supervision and inspection of quarantine behavior, severely crack down on illegal and non-compliant acts such as arbitrarily setting up charge items, disguised charges, and lacking motivation and failing to act after fee collection is suspended, maintain a good environment for industry development, and check every quarantine barrier before livestock and poultry food is served on the table.