Study On The System Of Quality And Safety Inspection And Testing Of Agro-produts For China

With the current inspection and testing system of Agro-products Quality and Safety (IQFAQS) as the research object, this paper uses the System Theory to analyze the key subsystems and the functions of IQFAQS, and analyzes in detail the current situation as well as the existing problems of the four subsystems, which are the organizations that conduct the quality inspection and testing of agricultural products, laws and regulations, administrative policies and technology standards. This paper also carries out study on the administrative experience of the foreign inspection and testing agencies. It adopts the supply-demand principle to estimate the supply and demand situation in the inspection and testing market in China. The major research conclusions and creative ideas are stated as the follows:First, IQFAQS mainly consists of four subsystems, which are the organizations that conduct the quality inspection and testing of agricultural products, laws and regulations, administrative policies and technology standards. The organization subsystem is the core of IQFAQS. The evolution history of IQFAQS includes 3 periods which are reform and probe period, construction and development period, and improvement period. The paper provides the statement on the main functions of the IQFAQS from six aspects: enforcement of the administrative laws, research and consultancy, certification of agro-products, arbitration and testing, commission inspection and technology extension.Second, this study collected 853 agriculture laboratories all over the country. The paper analyzes the existing lab resources and the main problems in the areas of the lab staff, fixed assets, size of the labs and the testing capacity. The result of the analysis shows that the development of the agencies conducting the inspection and testing of the quality and safety of agricultural products in China has reached a certain level. The size and capacity of the agencies specializing in the inspection and testing of the quality and safety of agricultural products at the provincial and city level can basically meet the development of the economic growth in their regions. At the same time, the paper has identified that the insufficient input, the shortage of income, and the difficulties in the survival and growth are the major problems faced by the agencies of inspection and testing of the quality and safety of agro-products.Third, the paper conducts the systematic analysis on 14 laws and 18 regulations and administrative policies governing the inspection and testing of the quality and safety of the agricultural products. The results of the research demonstrate that a complete legal framework based on the Agriculture Products Quality and Safety Laws has come into being in China. The corresponding administrative policies have also been established. However, the existing laws and regulations and the administrative policies are incomplete and weak and it is necessary to improve them.Fourth, the paper collects and sorts out the current standards of the quality and safety inspection and testing of the agricultural products at the national and industrial level. China has built up a rational standard framework with the national ones as the main body, the industrial and regional ones as the matching part. The existing inspection and testing methods can basically meet the demand for the quality and safety inspection of the agricultural products. However, the problems exist in the sense that some of the standards are timely not formulated or modified, the quality of some of the standards is not high, and the quantity and type of the standards are still insufficient. There is the need to intensify the implementation and the publicity work of the standards.Fifth, the paper has conducted careful studies on the structure of the laboratories of inspection and testing of the quality and safety of the agro-products, as well as the management experience in Canada, America, Japan, Korea, Australia, Holland, Germany, Britain and Denmark. It especially introduces the basic situation and management experience of the laboratories of the CFIA in Canada, the FSIS,AMS and APHIS in the United States. According to the studies, the paper concludes that the experience and practice of the laboratories in the foreign countries, such as the construction of laboratories, the sharing of resources among the laboratories, the rigorous qualification management of the laboratories, and the usage of the social resources are valuable reference for us in constructing and managing the laboratories in China.Sixth, for the first time two new concepts are proposed in the paper: the standardized unit of the laboratory and the capacity parameter of the laboratory. Based on these two concepts and the data collected from the survey of the laboratories, the level of the supply capacity of the laboratories in different regions are assessed. At the same time, on the basis of the total value of the production of agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry and fishery, and based on the total output of main agro-products and the production input, the paper estimates the demand of inspection for the quality and safety of the agriculture products in China. An in-depth analysis is made in the paper for the supply and demand market for the inspection and testing of the quality and safety of the agricultural products in China.Last, based on the situation of IQFAQS in China and referred to the foreign management experience of laboratories, the paper raises the following recommendations: we should further complete the laws and regulations in the relating areas; there should establish inter-departmental collaboration mechanism; the relevant standards should be improved; we should learn from the advanced foreign management experience and build up the core laboratories, and increase the operation budget of the laboratories as well as the funding for the inspection and testing.