On November 6th, the 16th Belt and Road Eco-Agriculture and Food Safety Forum was successfully held in Shanghai as a concurrent event of the 6th China International Import Expo. The forum was hosted by the State Administration for Market Regulation and co-organized by the Shanghai Municipal Administration for Market Regulation, the Development Research Center of the State Administration for Market Regulation, and the Secretariat of the Belt and Road Eco-Agriculture and Food Safety Forum. Xiao Fang, Director General of the Department of Agro-product Safety and Quality of Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, attended the opening ceremony of the forum and delivered a speech at the Keynote Speech.
Xiao Fang, Director General of the Department of Agro-product Safety and Quality of Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, delivered a speech
Esteemed leaders, guests, ladies, and gentlemen,
Good morning! I am very pleased to participate in today’s forum. Agriculture is the source and foundation of the food industry, and its relation to the downstream sectors is integral. Strengthening mutual learning and international exchange in agriculture and food fields is significant. Discussing ‘Eco-Agriculture and Food Safety’ under the Belt and Road Initiative framework fosters collaborative development efforts for a better life. On behalf of the Department of Agro-product Safety and Quality of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs of China, I extend my sincere gratitude to all guests and friends who have supported the development of agricultural product quality and safety.
China, a major agricultural country with a population of 1.4 billion, has always prioritized the stable and safe supply of food and key agricultural products in its governance, ensuring both quantity and quality, managing production ecology, and striving to provide consumers with safe and high-quality agricultural products. China’s agricultural product quality and safety are well assured, with an increasing supply of green, high-quality agricultural products, and a stable and positive development trend in quality and safety levels. Technological innovation has played a crucial role in this aspect.
1. Technological empowerment strengthens the protection and utilization of arable land. Arable land, a precious resource, is essential for human sustenance. The Chinese government has established a very strict arable land protection system, maintaining a quantity of 1.8 billion mu of arable land, preventing its non-agricultural use, and improving saline-alkali land. Quality is improved by building high-standard farmland, carrying out quality surveys and evaluations, and implementing actions for arable land protection and quality enhancement, especially focusing on protecting black soil. Ecological protection is advanced through practices like crop rotation, returning straw to the field, and promoting green, organic production. The next step is to reduce pesticides and fertilizers, relying on technology for intrinsic development to make every inch of land fertile.
2. Technological empowerment consolidates the standard system. Quality improvement leads the way with standards. The Chinese government places high importance on agricultural standardization. In national standards for residues of agricultural and veterinary drugs, nearly 7,570 limits have been revised or established in the past five years, reaching a total of 13,755, a 1.2-fold increase since 2018. This includes completing limits for pesticide residues in fresh agricultural products like vegetables and fruits and residues of newly registered veterinary drugs. China’s standards for agricultural and veterinary drug residues now cover commonly used varieties and main edible agricultural products. In agricultural production standards, 1,094 new standards have been established in the past five years, totaling 6,232, covering the entire process of major agricultural product production and key areas like green agricultural development. China is vigorously implementing an agricultural standard upgrade plan, eliminating standards not suitable for high-quality agricultural development, and accelerating the construction of a standard system prioritizing safety, green, quality, and nutrition.
3. Technological empowerment strengthens risk control. Source governance, risk management, and comprehensive supervision are internationally recognized practices for ensuring the quality and safety of agricultural products. The Chinese government, keeping both domestic and global perspectives in mind, continuously enhances the full chain control of potential risks related to agricultural product quality and safety. Rigorous risk assessments are carried out, with the establishment of a team of expert assessors and the strengthening of risk assessment laboratory capacities. For risks like cross-sectoral drug usage, heavy metals, and biological hazards, the government conducts scientific evaluations of the hazards and proposes technical measures for control. To improve risk monitoring capabilities, over 2,200 institutions for testing agricultural product safety are established nationwide, with routine monitoring plans formulated and optimized annually to cover major cities, main production areas, and key consumer varieties. China also explores the application of new technologies like high-throughput screening and identification of novel pollutants, reinforcing traceability investigations and causative analyses of discovered issues.
4. Technological empowerment enhances smart supervision. The burgeoning development of new technologies like the internet and big data offers robust support for innovating governance models of agricultural product quality and safety. To strengthen grassroots governance, the Chinese government has established regulatory service stations in towns and villages, staffed with technical personnel. A rapid detection technology using colloidal gold, which can quickly identify pesticide residues in agricultural products, was successfully developed to address grassroots monitoring challenges, providing effective scientific support for supervision. To enhance supervisory efficiency and considering the diverse nature and lengthy supply chain of agricultural products, China actively employs information technology to advance smart supervision. In some regions and for certain products, traceability of agricultural production and visualization of supervision have been achieved. Moving forward, the government aims to expand the application of digital supervision and construct modern supervisory methods like credit management.
Distinguished guests and friends! Innovation leads development, and cooperation achieves mutual benefits. Agriculture is a key area of collaboration under the Belt and Road Initiative. Over the years, China and countries along the Belt and Road have engaged in numerous exchanges and collaborations focusing on the development of green and organic agriculture, including legal regulations, technical standards, certification systems, brand protection, and market services. Smooth mechanisms for mutual recognition and adoption are in place, with China’s green food logo registered in several countries and regions, and many foreign agricultural products gaining green food certification from China. On the new journey of high-quality Belt and Road construction, we are eager to deepen our collaborative exchanges and jointly promote high-quality agricultural development, high-quality supply, and high-level supervision, to create a brighter future for the agriculture and food safety sector.
Finally, I wish this forum a great success. Thank you all!
The theme of the forum is, ‘Deepening the Belt and Road Cooperation in Agriculture and Food: Jointly Creating a Better Life for Humanity.’ Leaders from the State Administration for Market Regulation, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, National Health Commission, General Administration of Customs, as well as leaders from Shanghai, Henan, Hainan, and other provincial governments, representatives of provincial market supervision departments, representatives of relevant United Nations organizations, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and embassies of South Africa, the Netherlands, Colombia, Sri Lanka, Bulgaria, Tanzania, Senegal, among others, along with over 400 delegates from domestic and international enterprises, participated in the forum. Guests collectively deliberated on agricultural cooperation and food industry development, contributing insights and strategies for the high-quality development of agriculture and food industries in the Belt and Road Initiative, highlighting the role of the forum as a platform for policy interpretation.
2023 marks the 10th anniversary of the proposal of the Belt and Road Initiative and the 10th anniversary of the Belt and Road Eco-Agriculture and Food Safety Forum. Over the past decade, the forum has been successfully held for 15 sessions within the framework of the National Food Safety Publicity Week and the China International Import Expo. The forum has solidly promoted high-quality joint construction of the Belt and Road, extensively conducted exchanges and cooperation in the agricultural and food industries, played a significant role in the development and safety of agricultural food industries in the countries along the route, and facilitated smooth international trade among the Belt and Road countries.
