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North Carolina isn't waiting for the next time imported products sicken a child or kill a cat. In a push to find problems before they harm consumers, inspectors with the N.C. Department of Agriculture have been routinely monitoring imported candy, seafood, dry spices and nearly a dozen other imported and domestically produced products on grocery shelves. The program, started in 2005, is one reason North Carolina was recently asked to join four other states in helping the U.S. Food and Drug Administration develop a better system for ensuring the safety of the nation's food supply. State and local agencies conduct...

John Michael of Bethesda stood in the supermarket aisle comparing labels on two cans of mackerel. One said "product of China"; the other, "product of Peru." For Michael, it was a no-brainer. No seafood from China for him, given the recent news of tainted Chinese imports. He wants to know where his food comes from. "Country-of-origin labeling is important to me for food safety reasons," said the 75-year-old grandfather. "My family's health is top priority." Eighty-two percent of U.S. shoppers agree with Michael, according to a survey released in March by the consumer advocacy group Food and Water Watch. And...

Foreign food importers will be able to tell certified Chinese food products from fake ones thanks to a "CIQ" mark that all legal food exports are required to carry on their packaging from next month. The mark stands for China Inspection and Quarantine, which guarantees that the exports have passed quality tests, according to a regulation unveiled by the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ). The packages should also carry information such as the enterprise's name and address, batch number and production date so that any quality problems can be traced to the source. The measure is...

Summary: China's environmental woes are mounting, and the country is fast becoming one of the leading polluters in the world. The situation continues to deteriorate because even when Beijing sets ambitious targets to protect the environment, local officials generally ignore them, preferring to concentrate on further advancing economic growth. Really improving the environment in China will require revolutionary bottom-up political and economic reforms. China's environmental problems are mounting. Water pollution and water scarcity are burdening the economy, rising levels of air pollution are endangering the health of millions of Chinese, and much of the country's land is rapidly turning into...

(JAKARTA) - Local supplier PT Hawaii Confectionery Factory has withdrawn its product "Blackcurrant" candy from the market due to public concern over the possibility it contains the recently banned chemical formaldehyde. "Blackcurrant candy is a domestic product that is manufactured under a Health Ministry license, but we have decided to withdraw it from the market in the interests of consumer safety until the agency gives us the results," the company's marketing manager, Rusmin Soetjipto, said in a media release issued Monday. Blackcurrant candy is currently being tested for formaldehyde at the Food and Drug Monitoring Agency, although the company has...

(LITTLE ROCK, ARK.) - Tests of two Chinese brands of dog treats sold at Wal-Mart stores found traces of melamine, a chemical agent that led to another massive pet food recall in March, a spokeswoman said Tuesday. Wal-Mart quietly stopped selling Chicken Jerky Strips from Import-Pingyang Pet Product Co. and Chicken Jerky from Shanghai Bestro Trading in July, after customers said the products sickened their pets. Company spokeswoman Deisha Galberth said 17 sets of tests done on the products found melamine, a contaminant that's a byproduct of several pesticides. "There were very small amounts of melamine found," Galberth told The...

Chinese Vice Premier Hui Liangyu said on Tuesday the country should do everything possible to maximize the grain harvest this year despite serious natural disasters that have affected production in some areas. A good harvest was significant for social and economic development as it would help ensure the country's grain security, a rise in farming income and adequate market supply, said Hui. He made the remarks during a tour of eastern Jiangxi province, a major grain production base which has been stricken by continuous droughts this year. Hui ordered local governments to fully implement policies that would motivate farmers to...

(BEIJING) - Local authorities may have covered up outbreaks of a disease that has killed tens of thousands of pigs in China, the nation's chief vet said yesterday, but insisted there was no cause for panic. The highly infectious blue-ear pig disease has killed 68,000 pigs across China and led to another 175,000 being slaughtered, said Jia Youling, chief veterinary officer at the Ministry of Agriculture. Some Western press reports have said the number of infected pigs is much higher than the government has made public, citing the dramatic spike in pork prices in China this year as evidence. "Although...

Deng Derong cracks his hard-boiled egg against the wooden table, peels it, and drops the contents into his steaming soup bowl. As his chopsticks stir the pungent broth, a line of customers head past his table to the counter at the back of his drab restaurant. Mr. Deng, a retired soldier who sports a white cotton trilby hat and black safari suit, bends to his morning bowl of beef noodle soup. The dish is a daily staple in Lanzhou, a city of 3.2 million stretched along the upper Yellow River,where generations of cooks have perfected its combination of hand-pulled noodles,...

(BEIJING) - Chinese state television has launched a weeklong series of programs dedicated to defending the country's reputation as a safe maker of global goods, pushing forward its campaign to woo back international trust. The first program was aired Sunday on China Central Television's economic channel and featured the head of a quality watchdog criticizing the recent furor over the quality of Chinese exports as "demonizing China's products." "Personally, I believe it is new trend in trade protectionism. Although recalls are necessary, it is unfair to decide that all products made in China are unqualified," Li Changjiang, director of the...

Consumers should not eat one brand of baby carrots sold recently at Costco stores because of contamination by shigella, which causes fever, nausea and vomiting, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency has warned. The carrots are labelled Los Angeles Salad Company Genuine Sweet Baby Carrots, and they come from Mexico. Costco has issued a voluntary recall of the carrots, which are known to have made four people sick. They were sold in British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario, Quebec and Newfoundland. The carrots are sold in 672-gram bags, carrying these codes: ITM 50325, and UPC 8 31129 00137 7. The sell-by dates are...

The organic industry has gone wild in the last decade, but you wouldn't know it at the Department of Agriculture. Despite year after year of double-digit growth, organics receive a pittance in financing and staff attention at the department, which is responsible for writing regulations about organics and making sure that they are upheld. The National Organic Program, which regulates the industry, has just nine staff members and an annual budget of $1.5 million. A Florida real estate developer named Maurice Wilder received more than that in farm subsidies in 2005, some $1,754,916, to be exact, according to a subsidy...

The Bush administration is planning to call in customs officers to help overwhelmed health inspectors protect Americans from tainted imports of food, toys and other consumer goods, senior officials said Friday, describing a new strategy for dealing with compromised products. The evolving plan, to be delivered to President Bush next month by a task force he appointed, also is expected to call for wider deployment of sophisticated technology at entry points. Inspectors would use hand-held scanners to detect the presence of lead, arsenic and other dangerous substances in a range of products. The plan would emphasize the responsibility of U.S....

(BEIJING) - China sought to shore up its battered reputation as a global exporter Friday, releasing a policy paper that touted its past food safety record. The paper also noted the current campaign to crack down on bad food-processing practices. The policy paper, issued by the information office of the Cabinet, the State Council, lists a series of achievements and planned measures, from establishing a national food recall system to increasing exchanges with quality officials in other countries. Though the 39-page document broke little ground, its release underscores the communist leadership’s drive to salvage the “Made in China” label, which...

(BANGKOK) - Thai health authorities on Friday warned consumers to be cautious in buying foods imported from China, especially fruits and vegetables that may contain dangerously high levels of chemicals. The health ministry said random checks of more than 11,000 imported Chinese products contained higher levels of pesticides, food colouring and other chemicals than is allowed under Thai law. "We have conducted lab tests and found that many Chinese foods and other products contained chemicals that exceeded our standards," said Paijit Warachit, director general of the ministry's medical science department. "All of these contaminated products would endanger consumer health," he...

Law would streamline regulations -- if it passes The apple-blackberry sauce sold widely in Seattle supermarkets, with the U.S. Department of Agriculture organic seal on the label, says it comes from Chino, Calif. It also says "Product of Canada." So how do you know where it's from? You don't. Dried banana chips are labeled as being from Sumner. But banana trees don't grow in Sumner. Peanut butter from Canada? There are no peanut farms in that country. Congress passed a law in 2002 saying that consumers were to be told where the food they buy comes from. But five years...

A grieving cat owner has filed action in federal court to force the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to “perform its duty” and investigate other toxins -- besides melamine -- as the culprit in this year’s massive pet food recall. Don Earl of Port Townsend, Washington, also wants the court to order the FDA to stop what he considers “all activities (by the agency) involving the destruction of critical pet food evidence.” Earl filed his petition for a Writ of Mandamus on August 9 in Washington’s Western District U.S. Court in Tacoma. Barron’s Law Dictionary defines this action as “an...

Rene Kimura will buy American or Japanese, but she doesn't like picking up products made in China. "If it's made in China, I think twice about it," said Kimura, who checked the labels on jars of sesame seeds for the country of origin label at Uwajimaya on Wednesday. "I don't think they follow the same standards at the U.S. -- not that we're perfect." Her sister, on the other hand, doesn't give it a second thought. The recent spate of recalls involving Chinese-made toys, toothpaste, tires and pet food hasn't stopped Janet Anthony from buying Chinese products. When Mattel first...

(CHENGDU, China) - A highly infectious swine virus is sweeping China's pig population...... The government in Beijing acknowledged that in the past year, the virus had decimated pig stocks in southern and coastal areas. But animal virus experts said that the Chinese authorities were playing down the gravity and spread of the outbreak, and had refused to cooperate with international scientists. "They haven't really explained what this virus is," said Federico Zuckermann, a professor of immunology at the College of Veterinary Medicine of the University of Illinois. "This is like SARS. They haven't sent samples to any international body. This...

Under proposed new regulations Beijing authorities will offer rewards to people who provide tip-offs that lead to the prosecution of those who put public health at risk. It comes a day after a Chinese TV reporter, who fabricated a story about how Beijing dumpling makers used cardboard as a filling, was sentenced to one-year in jail. "Main government officials or managers will be warned, demoted or sacked if food safety accidents which cause a serious social impact happen frequently in their administered districts," the Beijing Youth Daily said. "One-third of the new regulation details punishments," said one senior official who...

(NEW YORK) -- China Yingxia International, Inc. , a leading provider in the nutraceutical industry by engaging in the development, manufacture and distribution of organic nutritional food products, supplements, and personal care products in China, today announced that Ms. Yingxia Jiao, CEO and Chairwoman of China Yingxia, will host a conference call to discuss the Company's financial results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2007. The conference call will take place at 9:00 a.m. Eastern, on Wednesday, August 15, 2007. Anyone interested in participating should call 1-866-328-4270 if calling within the United States, or 1-480-293-1744 if calling internationally, approximately...

A mystery involving monks, primates and a Carytown tea boutique. Somewhere atop China’s Fujian province, a weary traveler gathers leaves from tea trees growing along a ragged peak. He’s dizzy from the height and tired from the climb, but this tea — this tea might be worth it. The altitude and mountain water ensure a high quality, and the taste is distinctly fruity and sweet. Adding cream to this tea would be criminal. Satisfied, our traveler — all of 4 feet tall and 80 pounds — turns and begins his long descent. He is a monkey. No, really. In addition...

(TORONTO) - The fallout from a tainted pet food scandal hit Menu Foods Income Fund (MEW_u.TO: Quote) again on Tuesday, when its biggest customer said it would stop buying some of its products in the fourth quarter. The unnamed customer, whose total purchases made up nearly 10.8 percent of Menu Food's sales volume in 2006, said it would stop buying 'loaf' products from the company beginning October 1, Menu Foods said in a statement. Earlier this year, the same customer said it would stop purchases of other Menu Foods products. "Menu Foods is disappointed in the reaction of this customer...

(BEIJING) - Chinese farming experts are considering planting potatoes instead of rice and wheat as a way to beat crippling drought each year, state media said on Tuesday. But the government would have to provide subsidies to persuade farmers to make the switch, they said. "The potato is more drought-resistant than rice and wheat, which suits China better as 60 percent of the country's arable land is dry," Qu Dongyu, a potato farming specialist with the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, was quoted by Xinhua news agency as saying. China, widely hit by summer floods, also suffers from a shortage...

(BEIJING) - Chinese police raided a village where live pigs were force-fed wastewater to boost their weight ahead of a trip to the slaughterhouse, state media said, in the latest case to highlight the country's poor food safety record. Four trucks packed with 80 live pigs were found by Beijing police on Wednesday in a vacant lot on the southern outskirts of the capital, the Beijing Morning Post reported on Thursday. Plastic pipes had been forced down the pigs' throats and villagers had pumped each 100 kilogram pig with 20 kilograms of wastewater, the paper said. The case underscored China's...

“You have a little bit of food on your face,” says one of the students sitting next to me. As I swipe away the offending blotch I wonder: Could this be the gelatinous sheep blood or the cow stomach? The thought leaves my mind as I move to shovel more chicken legs into my bowl of garlic sauce and vinegar. I have reached a new stage in my culinary experience: The “I honestly don’t care what this is, or where it came from” stage. And it’s a good stage to be at, especially in China. The food here really is...

Former Chinese food businessman reveals how contaminated foods get sold (NEW YORK)—A recent report about buns with cardboard filling has created quite a stir. We interviewed Mr. Li Jianwei from Beijing, who owned his own food business for 8 years. Mr. Li Jianwei owned his food wholesale business in China from 1992 to 2000. He even supplied the factory where the cardboard buns are made. When he was interviewed, he said he was not surprised to hear about the fake filling, because it is very common to buy food with inferior ingredients in China. He also said that this situation...

Dozens of bulbous heads of iceberg lettuce glided along a conveyor belt at a Dallas processing plant Friday, headed for a chlorinated water bath, a plastic bag and eventually the plate of a diner in Texas or beyond. Taylor Farms gets lettuce from fields in Mexico. A food industry official says the imported crops are 'grown to a standard that's far above just what you would find ... there.' But on this day, in addition to the watchful eyes of the hair-netted inspectors at Taylor Farms Texas Inc., the trek of the leafy greens was monitored by two top Bush...

(ZENGCHENG, China) -- China's vast network of food research centers and laboratories churns out mountains of papers on the latest farming techniques and technology. Their work on chemical use, pollution risks and genetically engineered crops is considered to be among the most advanced in the world. The Ministry of Agriculture keeps close tabs on the developments, constantly issuing new advice and new regulations based on the research. None of that information reaches Li Xiujuan. With her husband and two children, Li tends to a 2 1/2 -acre farm in Guangdong province, on the southern coast, where many of the fruits...

(BEIJING)--China faces a long and difficult road to modernize its enormous farming sector -- which employs more people than live in the European Union -- and the outlook is not optimistic, a vice-minister was quoted as saying on Monday. While China no longer has to worry about mass starvation, more than 60 percent of its 1.3 billion people live in the countryside and earn just a third of their city cousins. The growing rich-poor, urban-rural divide has been a major source of social unrest, and millions of farmers have left their land to work in the booming cities. "We must...

(BEIJING) - China said Monday it will use global positioning satellites to ensure food safety at the Beijing Olympics as it steps up efforts to blacklist manufacturers who violate safety regulations. Wang Wei, an executive vice president of the Beijing Olympic Committee, said the high-tech system will monitor food production, processing factories and food hygiene during the games to make sure healthy food is delivered to the 10,500 athletes residing in the Olympic Village. Food products will be affixed with an "Olympic food safety logistics code" and transportation vehicles will be tracked using global positioning satellites, Wang said. He did...

(BEIJING)--Global cooperation is the only way to improve food safety, Chinese official media said on Sunday after yet another week of global anxiety about the quality of goods from China. A range of Chinese exports, from fish and toys to pet food and toothpaste, have been found to be mislabeled, unsafe or dangerously contaminated, creating an international backlash. But the government has hit back, saying the problems of a few small, rogue companies should not besmirch the whole made-in-China label, insisting it does take effective action to guarantee safety. In fact, China has always worked with other countries to tackle...

(BEIJING)—China has banned Indonesian seafood after checks turned up dangerous contamination, the Beijing government's food regulator said. Indonesian authorities called the move an apparent reaction to an Indonesian ban on some tainted Chinese products...... The announcement did not cite any specific seafood products but the Chinese administration said Indonesian products have been found to contain mercury and cadmium, metals that can accumulate in water and soil from burning garbage, mining or other industrial processes. Both contaminants also have been linked to nerve damage, cancer, and other health problems. The agency also said Indonesian products had been found to contain nitrofural,...

Capping a week of incessant headlines about contaminated products from overseas, two of the nation's top federal health officials visited the Port of Oakland on Friday and watched a demonstration of high-tech equipment that is used to screen imported goods for toxic metals...... "We will always strive to have better inspections, but inspecting everything is not the answer," Leavitt told reporters at a brief news conference. "Ultimately, we have to work with those who actually produce the product to assure that we build quality and safety in."...... As he stood Friday morning near a port loading area, where hundreds of...

Customers dining on surf and turf at a local restaurant may find themselves feasting on steak and a handful of breaded shrimp that took wildly disparate paths through a disjointed American food-safety system. The steak came from a cow that was examined by a government inspector before and after it was slaughtered. The shrimp most likely were not inspected. The steak probably came from an American producer. The shrimp likely came from overseas, perhaps from one of several Asian countries that have been criticized for sloppy practices in raising seafood. The disparity is a function of America's 100-year-old food-safety system,...

The importing of a number of fish into the US from China has been banned due to health concerns. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that all farm-raised catfish, basa, shrimp, dace and eel from China has been banned, due to concerns over drug residues that are not approved in the US for use on farm-raised aquatic animals, were found on fish. "We are taking this strong step because of current and continuing evidence that certain Chinese aquaculture products imported into the US contain illegal substances that are not permitted in seafood sold here," commented Dr David Acheson, FDA's...

BEIJING - The athletes and tourists from all over the world don't have to worry at all about vegetable safety during the Beijing Olympic Games, said an official with the Supervision and Testing Center for Vegetable Quality of Ministry of Agriculture (MOA). Liu Su, vice director of the center said on Thursday that his center would dedicate full efforts to cooperate with the Beijing Organizing Committee for the 2008 Olympic Games (BOCOG) in order to ensure vegetable safety during the sports event in 2008. According to Liu, the center, which came into operation in January of 1999 after jointly certified...

(BEIJING) -- China said Wednesday it will inspect fish farms across the country to guard against use of illegal drugs and chemicals, but insisted the majority of its seafood products were safe. The move, part of Beijing's latest efforts to woo back international customers after a series of safety scares, comes as a team of U.S. health officials met with Chinese officials to discuss stricter controls on food and drug trade and increasing cooperation to improve product safety. Beijing has said the talks, led by U.S. Health and Human Services official Rich McKeown, will also focus on a U.S. block...

The vegetables grown in China are fine and there's nothing to worry about their quality, a senior official of the country's leading vegetable testing center said yesterday. "The compliance rate of vegetables to the national standards has improved greatly," said Liu Su, deputy director of the supervision and testing center for vegetables' quality of the Ministry of Agriculture (MOA). The center's tests for chemical residues show that the rate of compliance of vegetables rose from 82 percent in 2003 to 93 percent last year. In fact, the compliance rate reached 93.6 percent in April this year. The center sets the...

A Swiss manufacturer of food additives is recalling a thickening agent following reports it had been contaminated with the poison dioxin. The firm, Unipektin, ordered the recall of several batches of a food additive containing guar gum. The firm believes the contamination took place in India, its source for the raw material used in guar gum. Dioxin is a chemical compound used in fertilisers and fungicides which can be carcinogenic in large doses. Guar gum is made from the seed of guar plants, which are mostly grown in India and Pakistan. Small quantities of guar gum are frequently added by...

Media are no longer allowed to report “bad stories” about food. Some papers dropped whole sections on political and social current affairs; others are told to write only about sports. US-China talks on new food safety rules begin in Beijing. Beijing (AsiaNews/Agencies) – Mainland censors are tightening their grip on the media and limiting negative news reports, especially on food safety. Media outlets that report on food safety have been punished. In such an atmosphere of state-sponsored media crackdown a US delegation arrives in Beijing today on a mission to improve food and drug safety. The Publicity Department of the...

(BEIJING)--A U.S. delegation arrives in Beijing on Tuesday on a five-day fact-finding mission on food and drug safety amid a series of health scares about the "made in China" label. The United States stepped up inspections of imports from China after a chemical additive in pet food caused the death of pets there this spring. Since then, poisonous ingredients have been found in Chinese exports of toys, toothpaste and fish, while the deaths of patients in Panama was blamed on improperly labelled Chinese chemicals that were mixed into cough syrup. "Our U.S. regulatory agencies are concerned about what they see...

A new bout of food scare has gripped the United States, with the US Food and Drug Administration urging people to throw away more than 90 different products, made at a Castleberry's Food Co plant, from chili sauce to corned beef hash to dog food, for fears that they are causing botulism, a muscle-paralyzing disease. Seven cases of botulism have so far been reported. Most victims consumed a hot dog chili sauce made at the company's plant in Georgia that has been temporarily closed. The recall has been expanded to Canada as well. Castleberry is owned by Bumble Bee Foods,...

China has resumed exports of its "White Rabbit" candy, after saying that test results have proven conclusively that the product is safe to eat. "White Rabbit" producer, Shanghai's Guan Sheng Yuan Company, says ten containers of the sweet are already on their way to Singapore, India, and the United States. The dispute began a week and a half ago, when Philippine food and drug authorities claimed that the famous candy contained formaldehyde. Guan Sheng Yuan says it carried out sample-tests immediately, but found no traces of the chemical. Additional tests carried out by China's top quality watchdog also confirmed the...

Some Chinatown businesses say public fears over the safety of Chinese products are cutting into their profits. Retail sales at Bo Wah Trading Co., which sells Chinese dry goods and porcelain, have fallen 30 percent over last year, said owner Danny Au, who attributes the decrease to consumer fears of products imported from the country. "A lot of people come to my store and ask me, 'Are these stuff made in China? If they're made in China, I'm not going to buy,'" he said, adding that his wholesale business on Maunakea Street is down another 20 percent. "They see in...

BEIJING, July 27 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao on Friday called on domestic firms to improve product quality and build their own world-class brands in order to secure the reputation of the "Made in China" label. The Chinese government has always attached great importance to product quality because "it has a direct bearing on people's immediate interests, the survival and development of firms and the national image," Wen told a national work meeting in Beijing. Only firms with good product quality are competitive and able to increase their share on the international market, he added. The premier said as...

China has sentenced to death two leaders of a gang which stole crude oil by drilling into pipelines, causing 400 million yuan ($53 million) in damage, the Xinhua News Agency said on Saturday. A court in Dongying city, in the eastern province of Shandong, gave a suspended death sentence to another gang member on Friday and sentenced seven others to prison terms ranging from three years to life. In 2005 the gang slipped into a seabed oil extraction centre at China's Shengli oilfield and drilled into a pipeline, but fled when they found it contained natural gas instead of oil....

Michigan apple growers can't help but worry a little this time of year, with the first fruits of the season about a month from ripe. The short supply of migrant labor and the potential for inclement weather that could wipe out a crop are the top concerns of most. But a less immediate threat looms from the other side of the world and may ultimately be the largest obstacle to the long-term survival of one of the state's linchpin industries. China, the world's largest apple producer, has been eyeing the U.S. apple market for years. Were cheap Chinese apples to...

(SHANGHAI)--After years of being accused by the West of making only token gestures to fight fake goods, and months of complaints about the safety of its exports, China is taking extraordinary steps to change its image...... And the authorities have even reached out to the international public relations consultancy Ogilvy to help the country refurbish its image. "This is a very concerted effort to show they are doing something,"...... "They are using work groups, issuing directives and closing factories. They are rolling out the artillery." Spurred on by a sense of economic realpolitik, Beijing has grown particularly fearful that mounting...

(AMARILLO) - A trip to the grocery store may mean a lot more reading for shoppers. What is referred to as mandatory country-of-origin labeling was part of the 2002 Farm Bill. It will require labels on many meats and fresh produce, and cattlemen and retailers are not happy about the roles they will have to play. The U.S. House Agriculture Committee passed an update Thursday that the full House is scheduled to take up this week. If the full House passes it, there is still the Senate to go. After that, The U.S. Department of Agriculture must write rules to...