Three more child deaths from adulterated milk, the poison being nitrite additives in this case (via BBC), underlines how broken China’s food production system remains despite extensive efforts to fix it in the wake of the melamine-tainted infant formula scandal of 2008. The sheer numbers of small subsistence farmers scrabbling to make a living by any means and the prevalence of local officials overlooking transgressions by local cronies further up the supply chain has overwhelmed the endeavors of central government.
Help may be at hand from an unlikely source: new food safety legislation passed in the U.S. in January. The Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) tightens the purview of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) over imported foods, including inspections at source. In a timely post on the China Law Blog, guest blogger Marc Sanchez, an attorney specializing in food and product safety matters and who writes the Food Court blog, writes:
China is the fourth largest exporter of food to the U.S…..Foreign inspection of Chinese facilities means increase pressure for China to modernize [food production]…China has attempted reform legislation, but its vast food production system remains largely unchanged. If FSMA receives its funding, it will act as a new push for rapid modernization of China’s food safety system. it will place FDA on the ground in China and it will increase border inspection of Chinese food coming into the United Sates. There is no way the FDA can do what the Chinese bureaucracy has been unable (or unwilling) to do, but it can act on China’s pride. China will not want to make the list of countries blocked from being able to export its foods to the United States.
Two comments: First, the U.S. will have to be prepared to fund FSMA foreign food inspections. With budget cutting, not spending, the crie de jour in the U.S. that is not a given. As it is some polls have shown Americans think 15% of the U.S. budget is spent on foreign aid (the actual number is less than 1%) so paying to clean up China’s food supplies, as it will inevitably be portrayed in some quarters of the U.S., will not go over well with some American taxpayers. Second, acting on China’s pride can always be a double-edged sword.
China Bystander 