Study On The System Of China's Food Safety Regulation

Occurred in 2008, the "melamine" poisoning event of our food safety cause to examine the regulation system effectiveness again.China's food safety has been considered as weakest link in social life. Food safety is not only crucial to the national economy and livelihood of the masses, but also an important indication of life quality of a nation and a state. Along with the rapid development of science and technology and the acceleration of globalization, food safety has growing impact on human society, and tens of thousands of people every year have contracted infectious or non-infectious food-borne disease because they ate contaminated foods. These diseases are seriously affecting people's health and debasing the social welfare and production efficiency.Food products have the features of credence goods. Being a kind of public goods, there exist externalities, information asymmetries in food supply, so market failure is quite common. To address the market failure in food safety, the fundamental solution lies in the governmental regulation----the"visible hand", to offset the limitations of market mechanism. However, years of regulatory practices show that the effect of government regulation is not satisfactory, the malfunctioning of governmental regulation is still plaguing the whole society. Theoretically, the fundamental reason for government failure is that we still do not have a profound understanding of the food safety supervision mechanism, All these are the important issues concerning food safety and need to be clarified. The understanding to connotation and extension of food safety concept has not reached unanimity, the decision mechanism of food safety is not yet clear, and have not the ways and means to construction cheap and efficient regulation mechanisms,especially on how to create conditions suited to China's regulatory system less. Therefore, the study of China's food safety monitoring system has great theoretical and practical significance.Under the guiding principles of public administration theory and economic theory and other related theories , given to the practice of establishing and improving the China's socialist market economic system, this dissertation, based on the current status of China's food safety regulation and the experiences in developed nations and regions, using theoretical and empirical analysis methods, qualitative and quantitative analysis approaches, systematically explored the mechanism and patterns of and approaches for food safety supervision in accordance with the principles of systems engineering and the logical structure of system constituents developed countries and regions, foreign experience and practices based on the use of and theoretical analysis, qualitative analysis and quantitative analysis methods, in accordance with the systems engineering principles, based on the constituent elements of the regulatory system (the main body of supervision, supervision regulations and policies , supervision mechanism and the improvement of supervision efficacy ). The dissertation is divided into 10 chapters according to the logical relations and structures.Chapter I: Introduction.In this chapter, the backgrounds, purpose and significance of this research were introduced. There is a serious market failure in the issue of food supply safety. In order to correct the deficiencies of market mechanisms, the Government regulation is need . But practice has proved that there is government regulation "failure" problem.The malfunctioning of governmental supervision and regulation in food safety was explored under the guiding principle of systems engineering, and the purpose of the research is to identify the sticking points and solutions, thus to improve the efficacy of supervision.Chapter II: Basic theories for food safety supervision.The concept of food safety is the starting point of logic to the issue of food safety control .the connotation of food safety was re-defined and the relations among food safety , food quality and food sanitation were clarified. That food safety is an integral factor of food quality, food safety is a relatively and dynamic concept, the level of food safety will match socio-economic development level. All these have laid a foundation for theoretical analysis. Based on theories in public management, economics and governmental administration, the paper expounded the social reasons for food safety supervision and the basic approaches, thus formulated the basic theoretical framework for thesis research. Analysis of food safety supervision is based on the public management theory, economic theory, and the government regulation theory. The social reasons of food safety regulation is to solve the problem existet in the food supply of the information asymmetry, incomplete and the issue of negative externalities. The essense of Food safety regulation is social regulation .Chapter III: Comparison of food safety monitoring systems between home and abroad.The food safety practices in the United States, European Union, Japan, Denmark and other developed countries and regions were analyzed from two dimensions, namely the regulatory systems and legislations (policies, laws and technical standards). The comparison indicated that it would be necessary to integrate the responsibility divisions of the food safety regulatory bodies in our country, according to the natural process of food production, food processing, food circulation and food consumption, and the specialized capacities of different supervision bodies. It should that it was ideal to put the whole supervision of most of the single product under one department. At the same time, we should learn advanced experience from developed countries and regions, and establish highly effective and scientific food safety rules, technological regulations and standards that are in line with international practices, thus to meet the need of the internationalized supervision of food safety and to construct a safeguard for food safety through perfect supervision system.Chapter IV: Analysis on food safety regulatory system factors and the decision-making mechanisms model.Food safety system regulatory is make up by from the three major categories of external factors and four internal elements. We assume that external factors are given, regulator can affect the internal factors. According to stakeholder theory, food safety level is determined by the food producers, food consumers, government regulatory bodies within the three basic factors.Based on the exploration of theories about life value and the willingness of consumers to pay, the decision-making patterns of both producers and consumers of safe food products and the decision-making patters of governmental monitoring bodies were investigated through cost - benefit analysis and game methods. Food safety supervision system consists of three external factors and four kinds of internal factors, all the factors, on the principle of system engineering, formed a complete closed-loop with different running mechanisms, such as the driving force, policy transmission and effect feedback mechanisms.The consumers pursuit is obtain utility maximization ,the producers seek to maximize profits, the Government seeking to maximize social welfare, the three forces of each other, are mutually dependent on ,they decision a specific community food safety level.Chapter V: Analysis of the main body of China's food safety supervisionThe efficacy of food safety supervision depends on the scientific duty division among the various regulatory bodies, also on the work effort (Vigor) and strength and capacity (Capacity), namely: performance = attitude towards supervision×supervision capacity = attitude towards supervision×(regulators'professional Quality + technology and equipment + other facilities), expressed as a function type: P = f (V, C), P standing for performance, V for enthusiasm, effort, responsibility, C for capacity.China's food safety regulators formed by nine departments, of which there are five main departments. The functions dispose of these departments in the vertical there are horizontal cross and overlap, semi-vertical and hierarchical management of the phenomenon of mixed,but grass-roots level have exists a vacuum. China's current food safety regulatory system led to inefficient allocation of resources. First of all, the reason lies in the fact that the function of regulatory bodies in our country is too broad horizontally and multi-layered vertically, thus increased the supervision costs and lowered the supervision efficacy. Secondly, there exists the capacity-building lag of the regulatory organizations. Followed by a number of regulatory bodies, in particular the local government in charge of food safety "total responsibility." Have Slack work phenomennons; The third cause is institutional capacity-building for a regulatory lag To improve the effectiveness of supervision, the supervision function should be strengthened at sate level and the resources of different departments should be integrated. The supervision power of should be narrowed horizontally and the function of each regulatory department be divided specifically. According to the mechanism of food safety and the ideology of food safety control that is to oversee the food production from the farm field to the table, the strategy should be adjusted from the process-oriented supervision with species supervision as the secondary to the species-oriented supervision with process monitoring as its supplement. At the same time, we should rationalize the regulatory system, improve the quality of the regulatory personnel, increase the funding and improve the level of technology and equipment, thus to strengthen the capacity of regulatory bodies.Chapter VI: The analysis of China's food safety regulatory objectThe current status and existing problems of food industries in China were studied by using empirical study and case study of the "melamine" incident. The main problems concerning food safety were as follows: the lack of self-discipline, the loopholes in the regulatory system, the imperfections in technological codes and standards, the fuzzy product liability, the defects in the regulatory system and the impotency in law enforcement.Between the overall characteristics of the food industry and the regulatory model exist of a close relationship. China's food industry overall concentration ratio is not high, only beer, soft drinks and a small number of relatively industrial has in high concentration ratio. Industries with high concentration ratio of industry, can be highly centralized management style. the development of a unified national regulatory policies, Policies of implementing HACCP-based certification should be drawed up by regulatory authorities to these industries .To the industries with low concentration ratio , should be dispersed supervision of the main regions can be formulated in accordance with its own regulatory policies on market access, only if the food safety risk controled in the tolerance limit .Chapter VII : Policy tools of food safety regulation.The policy tools for food safety regulation mainly include legal means, technological legislations and standards, administrative means. Based on thorough analysis of the relations among the above three, a novel conception for the construction of technological legislations was put forward, and the relations among the three were further clarified to facilitate the establishment of a more effective and coordinated policy system and running system for food safety supervision. In real practice, the desired results of food safety supervision depend on the proper use of various means. In accordance with the principles of systems engineering, only through integral planning, the principles of optimization and feasibility, making decisions scientifically, can we choose a scientific and effective policy patterns with typical Chinese characters. This chapter focuses on the difficult problems in food safety control– the policy models for small businesses and small workshops, Application of risk analysis in decision-making matrix ,that small business or small workshops of food should be regulated to rectify its behaviour, the To allow its doing beseness in a limit regional and time , is the best to maximize the overall interests of society but also can convenience and protect people safety mostly.and puts forward policy thinking for their regulations, that is to clarify regulatory responsibility, renovate the regulatory system and conduct supervision according to the grade and the category.Chapter VIII: Operation mechanism of food safety supervision.This chapter, using incentives - control theory of management science, analyzed the actual process, in which the supervision bodies affected the subjects to be supervised through supervision polices. The law enforcement coefficient was employed to measure the administrative law enforcement in China, the law enforcement coefficient of China's quality control system was only 0.33 and 0.37 in year 2005 and 2006 respectively, it was far less than the basic requirement of 1.0. Due to the imperfection in legislation and policy making with regard to food safety control, the malfunctioning of supervision of food safety often occurred.The theoretical and practical models for risk management that restrains the potency of food safety supervision in our country were also explored in this chapter. China's food safety crisis has entered peak period, food safety crisis have the features of abruptness, emergency, high uncertainty, information finity, the ambiguity of the border, non-linear characteristics of the development. The theory model and practical model of the food safety crisis management in China were analyzed, put forward four solutions to strengthen the food crisis management in out country. The first is to strengthen theoretical research in food crisis and its advocacy, use scientific theories to guide food safety crisis management; the second is to speed up the legalization process for food safety crisis management. The third is to perfect the organizations for food safety crisis management, the last is to optimize the management procedure for food safety crisis, and achieve standardization and institutionalization of food safety crisis management. Chapter IX: Performance assessment—how to improve the efficacy of the supervision system.The fact that many leaders of governmental regulatory agencies have been asked the accountability shows that the effectiveness of food safety control is lower. In order to urge the relevant governmental departments to avoid the slackness of work, dereliction of duty, malfeasance and other issues, a set of supervision performance evaluation index was put forward. This index system adopted the general theories for governmental performance assessment and the practices in different places, taking the practicality of our country into consideration, using Delphi method to conduct analysis through SPSS software, a new performance assessment index system including 20 indicators ranging within 6 areas of performance from 3 three dimensions was selected for local food safety supervision performance assessment, thus provide a powerful and scientific tool to strengthen the supervision over the regulatory agencies.Chapter X: Policy suggestions for strengthening China's food safety regulatory systemEffective food safety control is systematic project. To improve the effectiveness of food safety regulation, measures in the following six aspects should be taken. The first is to establish and perfect institutional systems for food safety. First, further improve China's food safety regulation system of laws and regulations, The coordination within "Food Safety law" and the original already exists laws such as the "Product Quality Law," "Food Sanitation Law," "Consumer Protection Law" and "pigs slaughtered management Ordinance "are relatively poor,there are need to unify the various laws and regulations. In addition, there need to draw up product liability law. Take action to solve the law supervision of food safety law enforcement. It is quite necessary to improve the legal and regulatory systems for China's food safety supervision system, to transform the departmental legislation into legislation at state level to achieve the unification of laws and regulations; Secondly,reform the food safety standards system, and leave out the contents relating to food safety, establish specified and self-contained institutional systems containing three levels, namely the food safety laws, technological regulations for food safety and technological standards. Third, turn regulation by government departments alone into the government departments regulation mainly, take community-related forces in the regulatory force,make up coopration mechanism of regulation.it is necessary to establish food safety supervision system with multi-facets. The short-term goal is to adjust the current responsibility division and strengthen the power of central government, downsize management layers, narrow management scope, perfect supervision network, the supervision responsibility shared by 8-9 departments should be centralized in agricultural departments, hygiene and health departments and quality control departments. The long term goal is to enroll the consumer associations, intermediary organizations, mass media, producers into the subjects of supervision bodies, just like the governmental organizations, thus to cover all the supervision bodies. Fourth, the strict food safety laws implemented. it is to strictly enforce the laws and regulations concerning food safety control. The enforcement of laws and regulations concerning food safety should be under the check of the National People's Congress and its subdivisions, and strengthen the law enforcement to safeguard civil rights, eliminate the flexibility (optional) in law enforcement; Five further improve the small food businesses regulation policy. to explore supervision patterns that are in line with China's national conditions. Based on China's national conditions, differentiated supervision should be adopted to small business and workshops, and flexible supervision policies should be adoped in different provinces and municipalities in accordance with the local reality. The Sixth, to strengthen food safety regulation performance evaluation is to establish supervision mechanism to check the monitoring performance of the supervision bodies. The supervision process of food safety should be a circling closed loop, containing four indispensable phases for planning, enforcement, checking and improvement. The policy-making for food safety should be transparent and public, and should have the extensive participation of consumers, produces and other related parties. A scientific and normative performance assessment system for food safety supervision should be employed to rationalize the allocation of supervision resources and improve the supervision capacity.The last part of the dissertation is the conclusion and expectation. In this part , the research work is summarized and basic conclusion of this study is drawn. The inadequacy about the research was also pointed out and the directions for further study was predicted.Regulation of food safety is facing a serious phenomenon of government failure, an urgent work is to take effective measures to improve the regulation performance level; food safety level is determined by three factors ,they are food producers, food consumers, the Government , food safety regulatory is a system engeneers, the system of any one element is missing or faulty operation will reduce the effectiveness of the entire system; reconstruction and innovation of China's food safety regulatory system should take six policy; Establish the mechanism constitute government, enterprises, consumers and other related regulatory organizations is the development direction to improve the regulation effectiveness.