The Role Of Industry Association In China's Food Safety Regulation Research

Food is the material basis for human beings, food safety is related topublic health, economic development and social stability. Food safetyissue has always been one of the public management issues all thegovernments all over the world pay great attention to. In the process ofthe reform of government management based on the publicgovernance theory, industry associations are playing an increasinglyimportant role as an autonomous organization with its own uniqueadvantages in food safety regulation. Frequent food safety incidents inrecent years, such as “Sanlu milk powder "," lean meat powder ","tainted steamed buns ", show that there are still some problems inChinas food regulation, the food industry associations did not play theirroles fully in assisting the government in food safety regulation.On the basis of the analysis of the theory and practice of foodsafety regulation, this paper selects a most representative one of thefood industry associations—Food Industry Association, analyses itshistory and role in the food safety regulation, then comes to aconclusion that represented by Food Industry Association, the mainproblems of China’s food industry associations are as follows: lack ofindependence of regulation, irrational regulatory structure system, theabsence of supervision and other issues. Industry associations of Westerncountries started earlier, the development is more mature. The foodindustry associations in the Netherlands and the United States on behalfof foreign food industry associations have the characteristics of strongindependence, covering a wide range. We can learn a lot from theirsuccessful regulation experience. This paper compares the regulationeffects of industry associations both at home and abroad, analyzes thefeasibility of our country learning from the experience of foreign foodindustry associations according to Chinas national conditions, and suggests that in order to give full play to the industry associations inChinas food safety regulation, the government must relax the control,improve the legal system construction, and give necessary support tothe associations. Meanwhile, the self-construction of food industryassociations must be continued to be improved, the layout andstructure of the associations should be optimized and the self-disciplinemechanism construction of the associations should be strengthened.