A Study On The Supervision Sampling Efficiency Of Food Safety In China

Food safety is an important part of social public safety,not only related to domestic economic development,political stability,social harmony,and people’s welfare,but also related to international trade and international relations.Although solving food safety problems requires the participation of all sectors of society,in the face of the severe and complex food safety situation,government supervision has always occupied an unshakable leading position in food safety governance.Especially since the 18 th CPC National Congress,the CPC Central Committee and the State Council have attached great importance to food safety issues,and food safety supervision has been planned and deployed in the Five-sphere Integrated Plan and the Four-pronged Comprehensive Strategy.As the first link in food safety supervision,supervision and sampling is not only an important way for the government to identify problematic food products and enterprises,but also an important basis for the supervision and punishment of the enterprises involved.Therefore,the Chinese central government has always attached importance to food safety supervision and sampling,and has repeatedly stressed adhering to the problem-oriented principle and strengthening the responsibility of food safety supervision and sampling inspection of local governments.It aims to give full play to the "radar" role of food safety supervision and sampling to identify and resolve food safety risks and hazards,to enhance the pertinence,effectiveness and systematicness of the work,to continuously improve the quality of food safety supervision and sampling,and to firmly guard the people’s " safety of every bite of food ".In recent years,under the guidance of the requirements of the "Four Stricts",local governments,as the important executors and primary responsibility for food safety supervision and sampling,have continuously increased the number of food safety supervision and sampling.In 2020,the number of food safety supervision and sampling in China was 6,387,400,which is 37.07 times the number of food safety supervision and sampling in 2015.This number not only exceeds the 4 batches per 1,000 people proposed in the country’s 13 th Five-Year Plan for food safety,but also exceeds the sampling intensity of1 time every 3 years for high-risk food enterprises in developed countries.At the same time,the newly revised "Food Safety Law" is known as "the most restrictive law in history",not only the implementation of the strength has not decreased,but also the relevant information has been publicly disclosed.However,China’s food safety situation has not significantly improved.In terms of the overall food safety situation,China’s food safety index has always been around 290 during the last six years.From the situation of complaints received by the National Consumer Association,the number of food complaints basically shows a year-on-year increase during the last six years.From the perspective of food safety hotspots,"zombie meat","fake infant formula for special medical purposes","lamb adulterated with lean meat powder","earth pit pickled cabbage" and so on kept intruding.supervision and sampling play a bridge role between finding problematic food and punishing illegal enterprises.Therefore,In the context of the exponential increase in the number of supervision and sampling batches,it is of great theoretical value and practical significance to systematically and thoroughly study the supervision sampling efficiency of food safety from the perspective of local governments’ supervision and sampling behavior.From the governments’ supervision and sampling behavior,the purpose of supervision and sampling is to find problematic food and enterprises.So,how to quantitatively measure the supervision sampling efficiency of food safety in China under the implementation of categorized supervision and sampling,and to verify the measurement results(Part 1)?Further,on the basis of measuring the supervision sampling efficiency of food safety,as the intensity of supervision and sampling continues to increase,what are the regulatory factors that limit the improvement of the food safety situation(Part 2)? Finally,with local governments’ food safety governance having been fully incorporated into the performance appraisal system,what are the inherent reasons that hinder the supervision sampling efficiency of food safety(Part 3)? Based on these questions,from the perspective of local governments’ supervision and sampling behavior,which is the reason why the food safety situation in China has not improved significantly the continuous increase of supervision and sampling batches.The main research contents and relevant conclusions of this paper are as follows.Part 1: Measurement and verification of the supervision sampling efficiency of food safety.This part is based on the principle of classification sampling,using the data of food safety supervision and sampling in each region and the data of various types of processed food enterprises,and converting the disqualification rate of supervision and sampling into the disqualification rate of random sampling.Further,drawing on the select ball experiment and sampling probability model,by analyzing the theoretical logical relationship between the disqualification rate of supervisory sampling and the disqualification rate of random sampling,this part systematically constructs a measurement method for the supervision sampling efficiency of food safety and measures the supervision sampling efficiency of food safety in each region over the years.The results show that the overall level of the supervision sampling efficiency of food safety in China from 2017 to 2019 is seriously low and there are obvious inter-provincial differences.Specifically,the average supervision sampling efficiency of food safety in China is only 0.8056,0.8493,and 0.8673 respectively from 2017 to 2019,and there is no significant increase between years,showing a stepwise decreasing pattern of "east-central-northeast-west" in space.Among them,the number of areas where the supervision sampling efficiency of food safety is at a low level and a lower level has remained at about 20 for three consecutive years,and the high level of supervision sampling efficiency areas have instability,but the supervision sampling efficiency is at a high level and a higher level of areas gradually to the eastern region.On this basis,this part uses panel data from 2017 to 2019 for 30 regions across China and employs a negative binomial model to empirically analyze the relationship between the number of local governments’ supervision and sampling batches allocated among different food types,and sampling qualified rates and testing costs,and then evaluate the supervision sampling efficiency of food safety,to verify the supervision sampling efficiency of food safety.The results of both theoretical and empirical analyses show that local governments prefer to allocate supervision and sampling batches to food categories with higher sampling qualified rates in the last year and lower testing costs during food safety supervision and sampling.This biased allocation behavior violates the problem-oriented principle of supervision and sampling,and indicates that supervision and sampling of food safety in China are not efficient.Part 2: Research on the impact of supervision sampling efficiency on the level of food safety.This part combines public goods theory and the cost-benefit theory of non-compliant production by food enterprises to construct a game model for food safety supervision and sampling,which theoretically analyzes how the supervision sampling efficiency affects food enterprises’ decisions on non-compliant production behavior and ultimately food safety status,as the intensity of supervision and sampling continues to increase.By analyzing the theoretical and logical relationship between supervision sampling efficiency,supervision sampling intensity,and the level of food safety,this part proposes research hypotheses.On this basis,this part uses panel data from 2017 to 2019 for 30 regions across China and employs a double logit model to empirically analyze the impact of supervision sampling efficiency on the level of food safety in the context of increasing the intensity of supervision and sampling year by year.The results of both theoretical and empirical analyses show that the increase of supervision sampling efficiency has a positive impact on the improvement of food safety.Further,with the increased supervision sampling efficiency,increased supervision sampling intensity efforts are conducive to improving food safety.Part3: Research on the impact of performance appraisal pressure on the supervision sampling efficiency.Based on public choice theory,this part develops a framework for analyzing the implementation of food safety supervision and sampling,including the central government and local governments,and theoretically analyzes the logical relationship between performance appraisal pressure and the supervision sampling efficiency,using "supervision and sampling qualified rates" and "supervision and sampling batches" as assessment indicators of food safety governance,and then proposes research hypotheses.On this basis,this part uses panel data from 2017 to 2019 for 30 regions across China and employs the non-observation effect model to empirically analyze the impact of performance appraisal pressure on the supervision sampling efficiency with "supervision and sampling qualified rates" and "supervision and sampling batches" as assessment indicators of food safety governance.Both theoretical and empirical analyses show that when "supervision and sampling qualified rates" is taken as performance indicators,the greater the pressure of performance assessment,the lower the efficiency of food safety supervision and sampling.At the same time,when "supervision and sampling batches" is taken as performance indicators,the greater the pressure of performance assessment,the lower the efficiency of food safety supervision and sampling.Based on the above three aspects of research contents and relevant conclusions,Although local governments’ food safety governance has been fully incorporated into the performance appraisal system,due to the lack of a scientific and rational assessment index,it is difficult for local governments to adhere to the problem-oriented principle in the implementation of the supervision and sampling of food safety,which reduces the supervision sampling efficiency of food safety and thus food safety conditions cannot be improved significantly.Therefore,five specific policy recommendations are put forward in this study as follows.First,optimizing performance assessment indicators and improving their scientificity and rationality.Second,paying attention to the allocation of sampling batches and strengthening the problem-oriented principle of food safety supervision and sampling.Third,improving the supervision and sampling system and increasing reward measures in food safety governance.Fourth,establishing a follow-up assessment mechanism to encourage local governments to focus on long-term interests.Fifth,expanding the subjects involved in the assessment and guiding the general public to participate in food safety governance.