Pesticide and Veterinary Drug Management: Reform Toward a "Permission List" System Is Expected

At the two sessions, several deputies to the National People's Congress “took aim” at food safety, offering suggestions and strategies to safeguard “safety at the tip of the tongue” from the source.

Fu Qiping, a deputy to the National People's Congress and Party secretary of Tengtou Village, Fenghua, Zhejiang, said that the abuse of pesticides in vegetables and fruits in China is relatively serious. Even pesticides whose use is explicitly prohibited by the state, such as methamidophos, are still being used by some farmers, causing harm to the soil.

“Standards are the legal yardstick for judging the quality and safety of agricultural products and food safety.” Dai Tianrong, a deputy to the National People's Congress and chairman of Youkang Group, believes that judging from regulatory and judicial practice in recent years, there are “two lacks” in pesticide and veterinary drug residue standards:

“Known substances” lack standards. That is, registered and used pesticides and veterinary drugs and substances that have been explicitly prohibited or restricted lack clear standards. “When standards are missing, grassroots regulation becomes very awkward.” Dai Tianrong said that, for example, for out-of-scope use of pesticides and veterinary drugs, because of the lack of judgment standards in regulatory practice, it is difficult to punish even when they are detected.

“Dark matter” lacks prevention. That is, newly emerging or possibly emerging hazardous substances lack a prevention mechanism. “Such substances are both hard to predict and hard to regulate, and once discovered they often transmit through the entire industry chain.” Dai Tianrong said that, for example, melamine and 6-benzyladenine in bean sprouts, for these hazardous substances or potentially hazardous substances, there has long been a lack of effective prevention methods.

Dai Tianrong proposed that the management system for pesticide and veterinary drug residue standards be changed as soon as possible from the “enumeration system” of “what is not prohibited by law is permitted” to the “permission list system” of “what is not permitted is prohibited,” and that a new trinity management system for pesticide and veterinary drug residue standards be explored and established, consisting of “permitted standards, uniform standards, and exemption standards.”

Dai Tianrong believes that the core of the “permission list system” is to prevent the unknown and to treat the unknown strictly——agricultural products and food must not contain hazardous substances outside the “permission list.” Substances outside the “permission list” all follow the “uniform standard,” generally meaning they must not be detected. Substances within the “permission list” must have a specific limit value.

Dai Tianrong, Fu Qiping, and other deputies suggested that the “permission list system” be written into the “Law on the Quality and Safety of Agricultural Products,” established at the legal level, and change the current situation in the field of pesticides and veterinary drugs in which “known substances” lack standards and “dark matter” lacks prevention. At the same time, a compensation mechanism for preventing and controlling agricultural non-point source pollution should be explored and established to incentivize farmers to adopt environmentally friendly agricultural technologies and agricultural production materials. Support for green, pollution-free vegetable bases should be increased.