Vegetable quality and safety are guaranteed, and the data speak for themselves
Routine monitoring pass rate rises year by year
In April 2001, the Ministry of Agriculture launched the “Pollution-Free Food Action Plan” nationwide, carrying out routine monitoring of vegetable quality and safety in more than 90 cities across 36 provinces (regions, municipalities) nationwide. The monitoring stages are vegetable production bases, wholesale markets, farmers' markets and supermarkets. The types of pesticides monitored currently number 58, which are pesticides frequently used in vegetable production. The types of vegetables monitored number more than 80, covering the main varieties produced and consumed, with more than 18,000 vegetable samples tested each year.
Through more than 10 years of work, the production of pollution-free vegetables has been promoted, the level of vegetable quality and safety has been greatly improved, and the pass rate of monitored items has risen year by year and stabilised at a relatively high level.
Detection rate of restricted pesticides greatly reduced
The improvement in the level of vegetable quality and safety is reflected in the following: first, banned pesticides such as methamidophos and parathion are basically no longer detected; second, the number of detections and exceedances of restricted pesticides such as omethoate and carbofuran has also greatly decreased, and they are no longer the main cause of non-compliant vegetables; third, the detected values have also gradually decreased. Although pesticide residues are still detected in some vegetables, the detected values are generally not high, basically all below the limit values.
At present, some consumers believe that vegetables with pesticide residues are unsafe, confusing the concepts of detected pesticide residues and pesticide residues exceeding the limit. The use of pesticides in vegetable production is normal; if pesticides are used, there will be residue issues, but residue does not mean the product is unsafe. If the residue value does not exceed the limit standard, the product is safe; if it exceeds the limit value, it can only be said that there is a safety risk, and it will not necessarily cause harm.
Low-toxicity, high-efficiency pesticides widely adopted
In order to improve the level of vegetable quality and safety, agricultural control, physical control, biological control and other measures are mainly adopted in the prevention and control of vegetable diseases and insect pests, such as using insect-proof nets, hanging yellow boards or blue boards, using solar insect-killing lamps, and using sex attractants to kill pests, so as to reduce the use of pesticides. At present, the pesticides used in vegetable production are basically all low-toxicity, high-efficiency pesticides. For example, the most widely used new pesticide chlorantraniliprole has an oral and dermal LD50 in rats of >5000mg/kg (an LD50 of >500mg/kg indicates a low-toxicity pesticide), its limit value is 20mg/kg, while the value generally detected on vegetables is <1mg/kg, so there is no safety risk.
In order to strengthen the supervision of vegetable quality and safety, the Ministry of Agriculture established a nationwide agricultural product quality and safety testing system, supported the construction of 2552 agricultural product quality inspection institutions, and carried out monitoring of vegetable quality and safety. Since 2001, the Ministry of Agriculture has carried out routine monitoring of national vegetable quality and safety four times a year, and each province (region) has correspondingly carried out routine monitoring and supervisory spot checks. The results are very remarkable, and there have been no incidents of acute poisoning caused by excessive pesticide residues in vegetables. In 2014, the pass rate of all kinds of vegetables nationwide reached 96.3%.
Therefore, the quality and safety of the vegetable products currently consumed on the market are guaranteed, and consumers can eat them with confidence.