Investigating And Analyzing The Current Situations Of Food Inspection And Testing Agencies In Zhejiang

Through systemically investigating and analyzing the current situations of food inspection and testing agencies which were responsible to the government, this research point out the existing problems of food inspection and testing system in Zhejiang Province, and try to propose countermeasures from the perspective of integrating the resource of food inspection and testing.PurposeTo understand the current situations of food inspection and testing agencies’ resource and ability comprehensively, and provide objective information for the government departments to integrate resource of food inspection and testing.Investigating methodsFrom March to December in2011, the Food Safety Commission Office of Zhejiang Province organized the province’s main food safety supervisory departments to carry out surveys according to the forms designed by the Food Safety Commission Office of State Council. Food inspection and testing agencies accurately reported data through the online reporting platform. Investigation Results1. Resource overall situation:At the end of2010, there were227food inspection and testing agencies which were responsible to the government over Zhejiang Province,90.75percent of them had gotten the laboratory accreditation (metrology certification) certificate;3164of people engaged in food inspection and testing work,1386of which were full-time worker; The equipment for food inspection worth1.600976billion yuan; the fund for food inspection was193.1184million yuan per year,2008to2010, three years of financial funding (national and local) invested a total average of97,722,800yuan per year, the average fund of commissioned inspection was77.7288million yuan per year; completed food inspection sample quantity of approximately415,700per year.2. Distribution of resource:The resources belong to the health, quality supervision, agriculture, inspection and quarantine, food and drug supervision, grain and other food safety supervision department and other departments, formed a relatively independent of the food inspection system which distributed in11cities.Analysis and Discuss1. The importance of improving food inspection and testing system:Food safety problems have been become the focus question that people pay close attention to in the world, the work of food inspection and testing plays a vital role in ensuring food safety, promoting food security level. At present, building a scientific, normative, efficient and uniform food inspection system has important practical significance.2. The problems existing:(1) The foundation of food inspection resource is weak, and the construction efforts need to increase urgently:agency scale was small,1/10of the food inspection agency was useless, only1/8of the agency engaged in special food inspection activities,6counties had no food inspection agency.(2) Seriously redundent construction and extremely uneven distribution of food inspection agency:(3) People who did food inspection work were lack seriously, and the overall quality of the team was not high;(4)The testing capacity was low, the ability to serve the community was limited;(5)The sampling number was not enough, the outcomes of the testing shared less;(6)The investment of testing fund was less and the supporting system was not good.3. Countermeasures and Suggestionsr(1) To fully utilize and integrate existing food inspection resources. It should be integrating the food inspection program, funding, information, agencies as the main content of the resource integration, and done step by step emphasizing the county zone. The specific technical routes is:To achieve provincial, and municipal food inspection resources "relatively integrated" as soon as possible; to push forward the county-level food inspection resources "hard integration" steadily; to promote the integration of food testing program, funding, information-based "flexible integration" all over the province.(2) To cultivate and develop the social independent food inspection agency. To regulate the market access and supervision quality, open-up the social testing services market fully, cultivate food inspection agencies set up by private intermediary agencies、universities and research institutes.(3)To improve the supporting measures of food inspection and testing system. Improving the regulations and standards and standardizing the testing method; increasing financial investment and providing policy support; building information platform to achieve resource sharing; strengthening the team training to enhance the inspection capability; establishing the assessment mechanisms and implementing the responsibility of inspections.