Study Of The Control System Of China's Food Safety Laws

The food processing industries have got continuously fast development in our country since reform and opening-up. And we are getting more and more food in life day by day. Though the food industries have achieved a lot, more and more illegal activities such as additive abuse, processed food with industrial materials and so on, came into our sight. Because of lacking strict punishment to the food safety issues, the people felt no sense of safety in eating. Our country has issued and implemented Food Hygiene Law in 1995, but it still needs some improvement. Other relevant laws and regulations have not been established, which does no good to ensure the food safety. The author has studied the legal control systems on food safety in some foreign countries, tries to carry on discussing about how to build up the legal control systems on food safety in our country, in order to contribute to the academic research and legislation. The full text is divided into four parts altogether.Part Ⅰ is an analysis of current situation of the food safety legal control system and the major factors which can cause the food safety problems in our country. Firstly, the author analyzed the existing legislations on the food safety in our country. Our country's legislation on this field is relatively backward. The standard system is not perfect too. A lot of standards are too outdated to integrate with international ones. There are a lot of loopholes in the legal systems. Secondly, the author analyzed reasons that cause the food safety problems. Food safety involves the whole production chain. Each link may go wrong. Information asymmetry in food production and circulate chain, imperfect quality control system in the course of food processing, imperfect supervising system, outmoded standard and detection technique, especially the public not being aware of this are the main factors that cause the food safety problem in our country.Part Ⅱ is theoretical foundation of the legal control on food safety. The food safety problem in our country is very serious now. It has influenced the people's lives and health, economic development and stability of the society. It is a kind of overall and public economic relations. So the legal control problem on food safety should be included in the study scope of economic law. The author uses the theory on economic law that the market does not work to analyze the food safetyproblems from three respects, externality, information asymmetry and public articles. Because of influence of externality, both the lawful manufacturers and unlawful ones choose to ignore the food safety problem in order to lower costs. Among marketing, producers' and consumers' information on food quality are not the same. Because of false food advertisement, especially false propaganda in the health food is everywhere; this has caused the asymmetry of information even more. Food safety information, supervision and management to the food market, etc. are all public articles, to these public articles, individual has no ability to offer, which must be offered by the government.Part III is an overview of the food safety supervisee and management system in foreign countries. The author has carried on researching the food safety management systems in U.S.A., European Union, Australia and Japan from two respects of the food safety regulator and legal system mainly. In U.S.A., Ministry of Public Health and a lot of departments and organizations of the federal government at all levels, employ food inspector, microbiologist, epidemiologist and other food scientist, etc. to supervise the food continuously. Criterion and other decrees of state and federal law have clear regulations to these supervisors1 authority. U.S.A.'s main food safety authorized decrees include: Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetics Act (FFDCA), FACA, Poultry Product Inspection Act (PPIA), Eggs Product Inspection Act (EPIA), Food Quality Protection Act (FQPA) and Public Health Service Act (PHSA). European Union's relevant management organizations concerning food safety are mainly Food Safety Bureau and Food and Veterinarian's Office. European Union has issued a series of orders, regulations to establish European Union's food safety standards, including examination procedure, animals and plants hygiene inspection and quarantine standards, health standards and demand for using the products label, etc. Food Standard Bureau of Australia and New Zealand (FSANZ), Australian Inspection and Quarantine Bureau, the Customs, Hygiene and Department of Health Care for the Aged, Agricultural Ministry of Forestry of Fishing, etc., according to each one's duty, is responsible for supervising one or some of the food supplying chain separately. Based on the latest progress in food science and technology and risk assessment management, analyzed impact on economy and the society of food standard and adopted the analysis result of risk about international food standard, FSANZ has made four food safety standardsto implement at present. There are two organizations carrying out the administrative and law enforcement directly in Japan. The Japanese food quality safety legislation has five respects mainly: Food quality hygiene; Quality of agricultural products; Quality of the input (agriculture chemical, animal remedy, fodder additive, etc.); Animal's epidemic prevention; Plant protection. It has been proved by study that the key to guarantee food's safety, food enterprises' strong competitiveness and the government strong supervision lies in an advanced food quality safety standard system and measuring system as well as an perfect supervision management system.Part IV attempts to construct the food safety legal control systems of our country. In this part the author uses the thought of "food supply chain comprehensive management" to put forward his own legislative idea to the law of food safety of our country from four aspects, i.e. the legal construction, organizational building, management mode and system of controlling. In legal construction, our country should construct the legal system of the food safety in an all-round way, set up agriculture's standardized system, quality system approval procedure of the agricultural system, food quality safety approval procedure, food quality safety market access legal system, food quality surveillance inspection system, red blacklist announce system, food recall system, etc. In organizational building, we should change from traditional scattered management to establish the system of unified supervision and management, combine the quality safety measure network, set up and amplify the food accident emergency system. In management mode, we should change from single supervision mode into double supervision mode on both enterprise and products. In controlling system, we should set up the total course control system " from farmland to dining table ".