| Agro-food quality and safety certification (AQSC) was one of the most effective measures to ensure the quality and safety of agro-food, and to reduce the governmental management cost. In order to promote the development of Chinese AQSC soundly and constantly, the system of AQSC in china was analyzed from the two aspects of macro system elements and micro system operating mechanisms, on the base of researching the basic theory, such as the characteristics, the role, the development of AQSC. The results were summarized as followed.1. The basic principles of AQSC were found. (1) The basic functions of AQSC was transmit signal of agro-food quality and safety in the market. (2) AQSC owned the following features: the complexity of the applier, the currency of the certification period, the uncontrollability of the certificated quality and the authority of the certification agency. (3) The development trend of AQSC was deduced from the role, the development course and characteristics. It will gradually become an important government measure of controlling agro-food quality and safety, gradually be globalized, progress in the direction of combining system certification and product certification, and the AQSC agency will mainly be third-party organizations with government intervention. (4) The system of AQSC included the law sub-system which was the base of the system, the standards sub-system which was the guideline of the system, the inspection sub-system which was the technique support of the system, the supervision management sub-system which was the guarantee of the system, the certification frame sub-system which was the core of the system, the organization sub-system which was the executor of the system. (5) And from the certification flow's point of view, the operation mechanism had five contents: the simulation mechanism for the producer applying certification, the operation mechanism of the certification agency, the transmitting mechanism of the certification signal, the intervention mechanism of the government and the feedback mechanism of the consumer.2. The development status of six sub-systems of AQSC in China was analyzed by lots of case studies and comparative studies. (1) The legal sub-system has been set up, which was composed of the related laws, regularities, regulations and local regulations. But the legislation guarantee of AQSC in China was not sufficient. Nether comprehensive nor special law did not be involved in AQSC. (2) The system frame of AQSC was composed of the production certification which included no-hazard agro-food, green food and organic food certification, and the management system certification which included HACCP, GAP and GMP. But the compulsive certification of agro-food was not initiated, and the certification mode of QASC in China did not tightly combine with the characters of AQSC and was not very suitable for the Chinese agricultural situation. (3) The AQSC bodies mainly belong to agricultural administrational department. The training agency and consulting agency were deficiency, and professional censors and experts of certification bodies were not enough. The technical training of enterprise inner-inspectors for AQSC had still been at the beginning. (4) The standards that AQSC was according to mainly were agricultural industrial standards. But the standard system was imbalance, the technical level of the standards was low, and standard localization was not prominent and its direction was not so clear. (5) The inspection institutes of AQSC mainly were the institutes belonging to the agricultural administrational department. But there were short of the fund of infrastructure and operation for the inspection institutes, so the institutes operation mainly depended on the charge of testing. And there was lack of regulations for inspection institutes. (6) The agricultural administrational departments were mainly responsible for the management and supervision of AQSC. The government administration supervision, accreditation supervision, self-discipline and public media supervision did not totally play their function. The supervision on the certified agro-food was the weakest, which was needed to strengthen.3. The operational mechanism of AQSC system was analyzed by setting up theoretic mold and statistic mold. The 5 operational mechanisms were analyzed respectively. (1) The main driving force of producer applying no-hazard agro-food certification was outer-force, such as government management, market requirement and imitative motivate. And there was lack of inner driving force. (2) The document review, the spot check and inspection of agro-food and produce environment were the main influence factors of the certification cost and quality. (3) The certification sign was visual, direct, easy to print and distinguish, and it was the most common model of certification signal transmit. The use of the certification sign was greatly affected by the category of the product and the type of the applicant. (4) Chinese government initiated the main types of certification, but was insufficiency in the construction of the law, the development direction, the education and technical extension of AQSC. (5) The city consumers placed food safety on the top of their shopping list when buying edible agro-food. And most of them had the buying experience, and were willing to pay a higher price for safer food, while the extra amount of money they were willing to pay was limited.4. The Measures of perfecting the system structure and optimizing the operational mechanism of AQSC were proposed. (1) The legislation sub-system with comprehensive and special law should be set up, included supervision and support. The system frame of AQSC should be perfected, and the mold of certification which combines the produce environment certification and product certification should be insisted. The organization sub-system of AQSC should be developed, and the ability of censor should be enhanced. The standards sub-system should be adjusted and the technical level of standards should be increased. The operational ability of inspection sub-system should be enhanced by strengthening management and science research. The supervision management sub-system should play the integrated function, and the supervision and management should focus on the certification sign and certified production. (2) The producer applying certification ability and willing should be enhanced by increasing the outer and inner driving force. The certification agency should be operated with high efficiency by reducing the certification cost and raising the certification quality. The signal transmit channel should be added. The degree of government interference should be increased through combining the support and supervision. The actual requirement for certificated agro-food should be increased to form the positive feedback mechanism, and accelerate the development of AQSC.
|
PDF Full Text Request