April 9, 2009

 

China's animal feed seen as safe

A senior agricultural official declared that China's animal feed is on the whole safe, despite scattered instances of feed contamination.

Deputy agricultural minister Gao Hongbin said the public need not worry about clenbuterol hydrochloride, a fattening drug in pig feed that was banned after it was found to be harmful to human health.

 

A livestock market in Guangzhou city in the southern Guangdong province has banned all pigs from central Henan from entering its market since late March, when 151 pigs from its Mengjin county were suspected of being fed with tainted feed.

 

The Ministry of Agriculture sent investigation teams to the Guangdong and Hunan, another province that filed a similar report, after learning the news, Gao said.

 

The Ministry has since sent supervision teams to 12 provinces to oversee local work on securing animal feed, he said.

 

In 2008, the Ministry inspected nearly 25,000 batches of animal feed samples, and in the process confiscated and destroyed about 6,900 tonnes of feed and closed down 256 firms that were operating illegally, Gao said.

 

China has initiated a series of food safety campaigns following the tainted milk scandal late last year.

 

But the assurance of safe products has not translated into a revitalised dairy market, as prices for dairy products have continued to decline at home and overseas.

 

Gao warned that the dairy industry will have a difficult time recovering if local consumers do not have confidence in home-made dairy products.

 

Despite that statement, China's dairy industry reportedly is recovering quite well, with large dairy producers Yili and Mengniu announcing that sales had returned, or close to returning the pre-scandal levels.