The Jindun Rice inspection report is like looking at flowers through fog, and the results still need to be clarified.
Personnel at Jindun Industrial Company would put on a Rashomon-style drama for days on end because they misread a test report, and even the final apology press conference still offered an incorrect interpretation of the report. I have never had the chance to see the full test report that led to Jindun rice being pulled from shelves for no good reason, yet from straining my presbyopic eyes over the half-page, curved photos in certain newspapers, I feel great sympathy for the general manager of Jindun Industrial Company, and I also find it incredible that in the three days after the incident, no testing body stepped in to help the company explain the contents of the report.
"Biochemical method" test reports create misleading interpretations
I first saw the television report that Jindun rice was being voluntarily pulled from shelves by the manufacturer over pesticide residues at noon on November 3, in a cafeteria. Since organic rice was not mentioned, I assumed the two pesticides reported, cyhalothrin and fenitrothion, must have been present in excessive residues. That evening a reporter called to ask about the case, and I immediately asked how much residue there was. The reporter said it had been sent to the Taiwan Agricultural Chemicals and Toxic Substances Research Institute for testing, and the result was a positive reaction. I immediately replied that if a test report from the institute detects something, it will definitely state the pesticide name and the residue level; only the biochemical method uses a positive reaction and does not give a pesticide name, so there was a problem with this report.
The reporter, very diligently, checked again with the manufacturer and said the insecticide detected was chlorpyrifos, showing a positive reaction; a fungicide, Bacillus thuringiensis, was also detected, likewise positive. I told her with certainty that this was a report using the biochemical method, which cannot identify the type of pesticide, that Bacillus thuringiensis is an insecticide, and that the report should only show an inhibition rate. Moreover, the results of biochemical testing have no legal basis and no scientific basis for judging whether something is compliant or not. I was puzzled as to how such a simple test result could give rise to such a big problem.
I did not watch the manufacturer's apology press conference on the afternoon of the 4th. The next day, looking at the test report in the front-page newspaper photo and comparing the various accounts, I formed some reasoning. The contract-farming households whose crops Jindun Industrial Company purchased had submitted wet paddy rice for testing before harvest. Because the biochemical method was used, it could only show that there was a pesticide residue reaction, and then the toxicity strength was inferred from how high or low the sample's inhibition rate was against the biochemical enzyme reaction, on which basis a decision was made to extend the harvest. I must stress again that this has no legal basis and no scientific basis. Since these were contract-farming households, there should have been pesticide use records. If the test report could not identify the pesticide type, then one could infer from the pesticide use records; the farmers should have used cyhalothrin and fenitrothion during the rice growing period, so Jindun Company concluded that these were the two pesticides involved.
As for how pesticide names could appear in a biochemical test report, if Jindun Company had sent samples to a farmers' association biochemical station for testing, it would not have misread them, because an ordinary biochemical station report only gives the enzyme inhibition rate with and without bromine water added; it does not give pesticide residue levels, nor can it be compared with the tolerance levels for rice announced by the Department of Health, so there is no way to judge whether it is compliant or safe. Unfortunately, Jindun Company sent its samples to the Taiwan Agricultural Research Institute, which developed the biochemical method, for testing. To show that this method also has something to follow, the institute carefully stated in the report that the enzyme inhibition rate was based on the toxicity inhibition rate for chlorpyrifos, and that the fungicide was based on the inhibition rate for Bacillus thuringiensis. This was what made the manufacturer unable to understand it.
The "biochemical pesticide testing" system should be stopped, and "chemical pesticide residue testing" should be thoroughly implemented
The biochemical method can only test the inhibition rate of the enzymes extracted from fly heads if pesticide residues are present in a sample. Insecticides have many mechanisms of action; not every one reacts to the enzyme, and those that react sensitively are not necessarily highly toxic. There is no positive correlation between the inhibition rate of various pesticides in the biochemical method and the safe tolerance level, so how can it be used as the basis for destruction or delaying harvest?
When this method was first introduced, to avoid farmers suffering undeserved blame because of its false-positive reactions, it was required that samples with a high biochemical inhibition rate undergo further chemical testing, and that only with a definite pesticide residue type and residue level could agricultural products and farmers or manufacturers be punished according to law. Over the years everything has been simplified, the biochemical method is everywhere, with stations set up all over by farmers' associations, fruit and vegetable markets, and school lunch operators, with a compliance rate of over 99 percent; the biochemical method's test reports have become a smokescreen for food safety, visible everywhere and within easy reach.
When a food operator's ingredients or products are found by health authorities to have pesticide residues exceeding the tolerance standards and are penalized, they can only argue that every batch underwent self-inspection, so why would it still fail? Is chemical pesticide residue testing very slow? In this case, nearly a hundred rice samples completed qualitative and quantitative testing within 24 hours. The government spent so much effort just for a test report that has no legal basis and deliberately mystifies things. Is it worth it? And should this biochemical testing method, unique to Taiwan, China, and its testing system be allowed to roam endlessly in a gray zone of half-truths?