Current Status and Measures of Implementing Comprehensive Standardization of Agricultural Products in China
As a major country in agricultural production, China's agriculture has undergone many changes and reforms from ancient times to the present, but the current production level still has not reached an advanced stage. China's agricultural production as a whole remains in a household-based production model, with small production scale, numerous production entities, and a lack of the necessary scale foundation for production standardization and the requisite conditions for uniform standardized management of large-scale production. Agricultural product producers mainly rely on traditional farming experience, planting and breeding skills, and the reverse pressure mechanism of market sales to determine the varieties to be produced in the next production cycle and the management and control measures to be adopted during the production process.
As regards the essence of agricultural product quality and safety, producers and consumers are the two most important actors. If producers produce in a standardized manner and consumers are well informed and understand, the self-discipline mechanism for agricultural product quality and safety will naturally come into play, and government law enforcement and supervision will become easy and simple. The production behavior of the vast majority of agricultural products can rely on producer self-discipline, and government departments will not need to implement “nanny-style” quality management that covers all links. The focus of government law enforcement and supervision only needs to highlight the inspection of the illegal and non-compliant behavior of a very small number of producers, thereby completely reversing the current passive regulatory pattern in which agricultural product quality and safety supervision focuses on trying every means to ensure compliance by the vast majority of agricultural product production and operation entities, and then shifting to law enforcement and supervision centered on severely cracking down on the malicious illegal and non-compliant behavior of a very small minority.
Small scale of agricultural product production and operation, insufficient constraints for standardized production
(1) The self-discipline constraint mechanism for standardized production of agricultural product quality and safety is not sound
According to the principles of standardized production, only under conditions of large-scale mass production, when production managers within a large production system, in order to ensure behavioral consistency among different individuals in the production group and standardize the production process, implement standardized production and standardized management, can the highest production efficiency, best quality, lowest cost, and optimal benefits be achieved from the production link. This is also one of the best ways to fully guarantee consistency in quality and safety levels and production efficiency among production individuals within the same production system, and it is an inevitable choice for large-scale production bases, enterprises, and cooperatives to implement modern management. It is an important means for large-scale production bases, enterprises, and cooperatives to ensure uniform products and batch supply.
For individual households or farmers operating on a household basis, starting from the interests of producers themselves, there is a lack of external incentive mechanisms and self-restraint mechanisms for standardized production. From the perspectives of behavioral psychology and economics, individualized production becomes more efficient and more subjectively dynamic the more it involves behavioral autonomy and management innovation, and the more it conforms to production realities. In response to the internationalization of the agricultural product market and the demand for safe, high-quality agricultural product consumption, whether it is agricultural products imported from the international market and produced by large-scale farms, or agricultural products produced by domestic large-scale agricultural product production enterprises, cooperatives, and family farms, including agricultural products produced by the vast number of scattered farmers across the country, for the vast number of consumers, all purchased agricultural products are required to be safe, of excellent quality, consistent in quality and specifications, and balanced and stable in supply. The market determines production, and consumption determines management. Facing the objective reality of a basic balance between supply and demand of agricultural products and the objective demand of the vast number of consumers for safe and high-quality agricultural products, in the supervision of agricultural product quality and safety, there is an urgent need to strengthen training for agricultural product producers in quality and safety knowledge and standardized production techniques, and at the same time strengthen guidance and publicity for the vast number of consumers on scientific diets and rational consumption, establish the public's most basic and fundamental concepts of food nutrition and health, equip them with the most commonsense food safety knowledge, and eliminate unnecessary doubts and panic.
(2) Comprehensively improving agricultural product producers' awareness of quality and safety is very important
From the perspective of agricultural product production, the most important thing is to focus on cultivating and developing agricultural product producers' awareness of quality and safety, the concept of standardized production, the bottom line of safe production in compliance with the law, and the building of unique production models according to market demand. Whether they are large-scale production and operation entities (including production enterprises, cooperatives, family farms, and large planting and breeding households, etc.) or household-based scattered producers, in the face of market demand and public consumption safety, according to statutory responsibilities and obligations, they should all be familiar with relevant agricultural policies, quality and safety knowledge, and laws and regulations, and be thoroughly familiar with the variety characteristics, growth and development characteristics, pest and disease identification, attributes of agricultural inputs, safe use withdrawal periods and intervals, safe production techniques in the production process, production records, origin release requirements, packaging and labeling, quality traceability, recall of problematic products, and emergency handling of production-related phytotoxicity for the agricultural products they produce and operate. They should truly achieve informed production, safe production, law-abiding production, and standardized production, starting from the most important actors at the source of production, to ensure standardized agricultural product production and full-process control of quality and safety.
However, in actual agricultural product production, producers know very little about the legal requirements for agricultural product quality and safety and about standardized production knowledge, including large-scale agricultural product production entities (production enterprises, cooperatives, family farms) and their employees, who are severely lacking in knowledge of agricultural product quality and safety control and standardized production techniques. This is also an important reason why agricultural product quality and safety problems, especially the problem of excessive pesticide and veterinary drug residues affected by producer behavior, persist despite repeated prohibitions and cannot be eliminated.
To truly start from the source of production to guarantee agricultural product quality and safety and raise the level of agricultural product quality and safety, the urgent task is to accelerate the establishment and launch of the “National Agricultural Product Quality and Safety Producer Training Project and Training Action Plan.” Financial departments at all levels should budget a certain amount of special funds each year for quality and safety training of agricultural product practitioners, to be used for training agricultural product producers and for agricultural product quality and safety knowledge education for students in the national basic education stage. For agricultural product producers already engaged in the industry, according to the goal of one round of training every 3 years, relying on agricultural technology extension institutions at all levels, agricultural technology schools, and agricultural product quality and safety technical institutions, popularize agricultural product quality and safety knowledge, strengthen training in safe agricultural production and full-process quality and safety control techniques, and enhance agricultural product producers' awareness of quality and safety, laws and regulations, risk and hidden danger responsibility, and honesty and trustworthiness.