Minister Lee Chinglung's unfaltering effort in promoting production-marketing profile system

Wu Qiuqiong reports

In recent years, the bird flu and the mad cow disease have rocked the world one after the other. In Taiwan shelf life related food safety has become an issue time and again. Whenever food safety issue arises, consumers can't help but feel suspicious and experienced panic. Consequently, food producers are caught in the dilemma of resorting to every possible measure to explain themselves to win back the trust of consumers. During an interview with this publication Minister Lee Chinglung of the Council of Agricultural Affairs expressed that the council had studied the food safety traceability system implemented in EC, Japan and Korea and initiated last year (2004) relevant projects aimed to effectively improve the mistrust between producers and consumers. Agricultural production-marketing profiling demonstration programs had been underway, and contingent data systems had been developed to allow farmer groups to provide online information about agricultural products for consumers to look up according to the profile number on the product. In addition, to help realize the Executive Yuan's "Healthy Taiwan" policy, Minister Lee stressed the point that COA had defined "Safety Agriculture" as its current focus of the administration. All COA affiliates and subordinates were to promote "Safety Agriculture" as the key target in 2005 and continue to push organic farming, GAP (Good Agricultural Practice) and products conforming to CAS, HACCP and ISO standards. At the same time, agricultural production-marketing profiling demonstration programs were to be expanded. Banana, pig and cobia were the three items selected for the application of production-marketing profile system. From beginning to end, their farming, production, storage and marketing would be monitored. Food safety starts with "Production-marketing Profile System"

The so-called "food safety tracking system", Minister Li pointed out, means establishing the "Traceability System". In other words, through the system, information about the food in various stages of production, processing, distribution and marketing are available. This system is called "production-marketing profile system", when applied in agriculture. For agricultural products, this signifies the process of production and distribution can be tracked down. In other words, producers and distributors are obliged to record the various stages from production, processing, distribution to marketing and include these data on the label, so that consumers can trace the processes related to the product and have access to information about each stage of production. As a result, specific features of the product are available and its production-marketing history, including name of producer, place of production, ingredients and the whole production-marketing process, is accessible. Once there is a problem with the product, the source of supply and the cause can be traced. The main purpose is that food safety is assured all the way through from farm to table and the production-marketing profile system is therefore the foundation to guarantee food safety.

Minister Lee emphasized that agricultural production-marketing profiling system could also be regarded as the way for producers and marketers to take the responsibility for their products. The information for consumers has to be open and transparent. When a safety issue of a product causes an incident, by tracking through the production-marketing process, locking on the focus to trace the end responsibility and handling the problem promptly and effectively by calling back or removing the product from the market so that other producers or distributors would not be affected, production and marketing risks are minimized and legal responsibilities are there fore evident. Through the open and transparent mechanism of the production-marketing profile data, producers can not only guarantee the product safety, in case of food hazards, the cause can be easily investigated and the source of problem and responsibility quickly sorted out. For retail markets and ruling offices, correct information can be readily obtained and both safety of agricultural products and risk management are assured.

COA's implementation of the "agricultural production-marketing profile system" has positive influence on both producers and consumers. The latter can conveniently acquire information about food suppliers, including producer, processing agent, distributor and retailer, and the risk of purchase is therefore be lowered. Minister Lee further analyzed that producers could help consumers understand specific agricultural products through agricultural production-marketing profile system data online and thus justify the distinction of prices between products of different grades. Moreover, before applying the agricultural production and marketing profile system, the producer has to receive counseling from agricultural research and extension stations to establish standard procedures for agricultural products as the basis of production, management and recording. Use of chemicals and fertilizers is then carried out according to scientifically verified criteria of pest control and soil improvement and the results are standardized quality agricultural products. Implementation of the agricultural production-marketing profile system apparently can benefit tremendously the elevation of farming techniques and management skills.

Achievements of production and marketing groups

Under Minister Li's active promotion, experiments and researches by COA and efforts by agricultural promotion agencies have resulted in demonstrative programs for the production profile system and introduced the system in the production-marketing process of domestic agricultural products. Lee Chinglung added that the programs had been applied last year on eight export items to Japan, namely pineapple, bird's nest fern, mango, iceberg lettuce, bull tomato, pea, cantaloupe and rice (Yichuan Aromatic Rice). Eight other items categorized for organic product certification - cabbage, water convolvulus, carrot, corn, cherry tomato, strawberry, tea and rice (Yinchuan Rice) - were chosen to be demonstrative products of the year. Specialists on these sixteen items from agricultural research and extension stations selected farmers or production and marketing groups to be models for the establishment of the production-marketing profile system for organic rice and root vegetables. At the same time data systems for agricultural product profiling from landscaping, fertilizing, use of chemicals, harvesting to packaging have also been developed. Modern apparatuses such as monitors have been used to help record the process, enforce safety control and inspect chemical residues to make sure the products meet the standards and demands of "safe agriculture" both in and outside the country.

Minister Lee indicated that the realization of the "agricultural production-marketing profiling system" would have to be done "through certification or review by a third party", meaning a third party certifying agency is to dispatch inspectors to farms to perform sample checks to verify matters such as chemicals and fertilizers used and examine contents of related books and records to ascertain the credibility of related data. At the same time, the agency is also to inspect and analyze whether the product contains chemical or heavy metal residues exceeding legal criteria to determine the safety of the product. Only by doing so can precautions be truly achieved to safeguard the health of the people in Taiwan.