How can food drug residue standards remain dormant and unmoving?
Recently, McDonald's announced that it will stop using chicken raised with human antibiotics in the United States by 2017, but it has not made the same requirement for the Chinese market, because the standards of the two countries are different. From IKEA cabinets to McDonald's chicken, multinational giants have repeatedly "served different dishes to different people," while the vast number of consumers in our country keep running into their own "standards gate."
It is understood that the standard we currently use for antibiotic residues in food is the "Maximum Residue Limits of Veterinary Drugs in Animal-Derived Foods" revised by the Ministry of Agriculture in 2002. In other words, this standard has been in use for nearly 14 years.
14 years, what kind of concept is that? According to 2015 data, our country's total GDP grew by more than 4 times compared with 2002, and its ranking among the world's major economies jumped from 6th to 2nd. Over the past 14 years, the living standards of Chinese residents have improved enormously, and the requirements for food safety are naturally no longer what they were in the past. But a food safety standard closely related to ordinary people's lives has been used for 14 years, which is somewhat unjustifiable.
Food safety standards are linked to people's health on one end and to the development space of the food industry on the other, and must be adapted to the level of national economic development. If standards are raised beyond the national conditions, it will affect the survival of food production enterprises; but if the level of economic development is ignored and a low standard is left lying there asleep for more than a decade, this can neither satisfy the people's growing food safety needs nor guide the overall upgrading of the food industry. A small number of food production enterprises clinging to low standards and refusing to move forward are in fact forcing capable consumers to buy imported food, which amounts to giving the market to others and eroding the competitiveness of our country's food industry.
Today, many domestic food production enterprises claim to have implemented safety standards higher than those of Japan and the European Union. Although this is considered a marketing strategy, it at least shows that in food safety standards, we have to a certain extent already acquired the ability to stand alongside advanced international levels.
It is reported that relevant departments are advancing the revision of some food safety standards. It is hoped that these standards will rise along with economic and social development, adapt to ordinary people's living standards, and promptly meet people's growing food safety requirements. At the same time, standards should be formulated more precisely, and classified and tiered management should be implemented under the premise of overall safety, for example, raising food safety standards for children, pregnant women and the elderly, and using market means to guide enterprises to pursue higher quality.
The people regard food as heaven, and food regards cleanliness as foremost. To let ordinary people eat with peace of mind, standards must keep up with the pace of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects.