New Director-General of the Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine Feng Haidong: Halving pesticide use in ten years requires changing farmers' minds
Pesticide residues have always been the food safety issue of greatest public concern, and pesticide use is closely tied to farmers' health. With last year's fluopyram and fipronil incidents causing widespread turmoil, how exactly should pesticides be regulated so everyone can feel at ease?
Feng Haidong, who took office in January this year as Director-General of the Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine under the competent authority, the Council of Agriculture, has been devoted to pesticide toxicology research since his graduate school days, a path he has walked for nearly forty years. The first challenges he must face are the policy goal of "halving chemical pesticide use within ten years" and society's deep distrust of pesticide use.
In the early spring, Feng Haidong accepted an exclusive interview with News&Market, proposing several new policies set to launch this year, discussing in detail the establishment of a tiered management system, the phase-out of high-risk pesticides, greater transparency in the review mechanism, more detailed pesticide labeling, and his views on eco-friendly farming, hoping that bold reforms will usher in a new era of pesticide management. The following is a transcript of the interview.
