A Study On Food Safety Supervision In Jining

In recent years,local authorities have encountered more and more pressure in the regulation of food safety,especially in the face of a complex market with numerous enterprises and frequent food safety events.It involves a range of parts for food regulation chain,from agricultural production,processing to food consumption.Each part is key and significantly related to each other.In this regard,it is important to establish an efficient and sound supervision system and implement food regulation in each part of the chain.To improve food safety and service quality,there have been many reforms of food safety supervision at the state level since 2013.Local authorities also carried out various policy experiments.In Jining,the local authority,namely Food Inspection Agency,is making efforts to improve service efficiency and effectiveness by integrating sectional departments into a supervisory body.In the year of 2019,the responsibility of food safety supervision has been integrated into the Market Supervision Bureau with a new round of administrative reforms being carried out in China.Thus,food safety supervision has been undergoing significant changes.In the dissertation,I draw upon theories of Holistic Government,Regulatory Government and Co-governance.The local experimentation of food safety supervision in Jining is used as the case study for data collection.I use TOPSIS method for data analysis.The structure of the research and findings are illustrated below:(1)Local authorities in Jining separated the functions of market access and market regulation with different departments,i.e.responsibilities of market access are integrated into the departments of administrative license;responsibilities of market regulation are shifted to the departments of market supervision.By doing so,it improves a better business environment.Yet,it results in negative influences over the separation of food safety chain and lead to the unsustainability and instability of regulation.(2)I use TOPSIS to analyse the outcomes of food safety supervision in Jining.It shows that there has been a steady trend for the emergence of food safety events in the recent five years despite some fluctuations.It also shows that there is no occurrence of importantsafety event during the period.The sampled passing rate has been stable and at a higher level in the recent two years,although there is a slight decrease in 2019.According to the sampled data,there has been significant differences among each area of the city: in Rencheng District and Zoucheng,where economy is more prosperous with more financial support,the unqualified rate is lower than the average level.(3)The research aims to provide a better understanding of the problems of food safety in terms of human resources,institutional design,process of regulation,and law and regulations.It provides a comprehensive account of the regulation status and identifies a few problems,such as the weakness of regulation at the grassroot level,single regulatory approach,the ambiguity of responsibilities,low level of social involvement and lack of a unified food standard.(4)The policy implications include five aspects: firstly,it is worthwhile to take the account of indicators of area per capital,enterprise per capital,population per capital and professionals per capital,etc.Secondly,it is important to improve intersectoral cooperation at the horizontal level and define responsibilities of each authority at vertical level.Thirdly,it is worthwhile to improve the evaluation indicators,strengthen the supervision system and encourage the involvement of the third party in the process of regulation.Fourthly,it is significant to develop the monitor system for tracing food safety chain.At last,it is crucial to strengthen the responsibilities of enterprises,encourage the leading role of industry associations,co-governance of the society and explore the approach of public interest litigation in this area.