Key Points from the Seminar on Pollution-Free Fishery Product Certification
On August 14, at the 2007 National Pollution-Free Fishery Product Certification Exchange Seminar held in Shenyang, Liaoning Province, the person in charge of the Fishery Sub-center of the Agricultural Product Quality Safety Center of the Ministry of Agriculture stated: at present, China's fishery product certification rate (annual output of certified products/annual output of aquatic products) is still very low. In particular, in major fishery provinces with an annual output of more than 1 million tons, the certification rate is below 10%.
China is a major fishery production country. In order to adapt to domestic and international consumption trends for fishery products and ensure the quality and safety of fishery products, the Ministry of Agriculture began pollution-free fishery product certification work in 2004, and the theme of the work was basically centered on the word "fast." By June this year, a total of more than 4,000 products from 2,500 enterprises nationwide had obtained pollution-free certification. However, as the certification work deepened, some new problems gradually emerged. In particular, for applications for certification submitted in the organizational form of "company (association, public institution, etc.) + farmers," the lack of effective management measures for farmers increased the difficulty of the certification work and affected the progress of the certification work.
At the National Pollution-Free Agricultural Products and Green Food Work Conference held not long ago, "sound and fast development" was designated as the theme of future pollution-free agricultural product certification work. The Fishery Sub-center of the Agricultural Product Quality Safety Center of the Ministry of Agriculture intends, through this exchange seminar, to widely solicit opinions and strive to issue the "Requirements for Application and Review of Pollution-Free Fishery Product Certification" by the end of the year, while also beginning to draft a certification plan for captured products.
Luo Bin, director of the Agricultural Product Quality Safety Center of the Ministry of Agriculture, pointed out that pollution-free fishery product certification work is not about restricting enterprises, but about helping enterprises establish standardized production systems while properly carrying out supervision of fishery products in accordance with the law, comprehensively enhancing the public credibility of fishery product brands, and accelerating the development of the industry. He required certification agencies at all levels to achieve an organic connection between forward-oriented promotion of development and reverse-oriented implementation of supervision, promoting each other, and ultimately realizing the ecological, safe, environmentally friendly, high-quality, efficient and sustainable development of fishery products.