Food Safety, How Many More Absurdities in Your Name? | The Regulatory Logic Neither Farmers Nor Consumers Can Understand

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Industrial revitalisation is the top priority of rural revitalisation and the starting point for practical work. Without industry, rural areas will struggle to attract people, let alone retain talent; farmers’ pathways to higher incomes will remain narrow, and cultural activities will be hard to sustain. As localities advance industrial revitalisation, they must think deeply about these three characters – 土特产 (local specialities)… ensuring that the value added to agricultural products stays in rural areas and benefits farmers.

— Xi Jinping, “Accelerating the Building of a Strong Agricultural Nation and Advancing the Modernisation of Agriculture and Rural Areas”, Qiushi, March 2023

 

Not allowing farmers to sell dried chillies, in the name of food safety.

Not allowing farmers to build cooking hearths, in the name of the New Village.

Not allowing farmers to keep chickens and ducks, in the name of a Civilised Village.

Not allowing farmers to raise silkworms, in the name of high-tech drone spraying.

All of these things

have already forgotten that China was built on a foundation of smallholders

and imagine themselves to be nothing but stars and sea.

— A young returnee born in the 1980s, commenting on the Measures for the Supervision and Administration of the Quality and Safety of Edible Agricultural Products in Market Sales (Revised Draft for Public Consultation)

I. Consumers: Confusing New Rules

On Monday, Foodthink’s article about how a new regulation may ban farmers from producing and selling dried goods sparked a great deal of discussion. In the Measures for the Supervision and Administration of the Quality and Safety of Edible Agricultural Products in Market Sales (Revised Draft for Public Consultation), the State Administration for Market Regulation has removed “drying” from the definition of “edible agricultural products”, which very likely means that, in the future, farmers who produce and sell their own dried vegetables, dried fruit, dried fish and similar products could face penalties for illegal activity.

A regulation originally designed to safeguard food safety has left even the most food-safety-conscious consumers bewildered.

Reader Wanica asked: Does that mean even dates dried on the tree will no longer be allowed?
Reader Lihua was curious: Is this a law to boost consumption? You’d have to fly all the way to Xinjiang to buy fresh jujubes, trek to Yunnan to pick walnuts straight off the tree, and make a special trip to Gansu for goji berries. Or maybe just buy a house with a big courtyard, stock up on fresh produce whenever you fancy, and dry it yourself… Now that would really boost consumption!
Reader Qiuqiu said: It is perfectly normal for farmers to sell things they have dried themselves, or to cut fresh fruit at a market stall. Not everything should be run through the logic of food safety regulation. The ones that really need sorting out are the factory-processed foods that go wrong most often – grain, cooking oil, milk powder, spicy strips… In 2019, a farmer in Qinghai sold me a bag of dried goji berries he had grown himself. To this day my mum still asks me if she can get more – the quality was outstanding. Consumers have a sense for these things. We have our own palate experiences when it comes to dried and fresh produce, and we can be very particular. The moment I imagine the auntie who calls out from outside the school gate – “Hey miss, fancy a mango?” – having to set up a machine and standardised procedures just to cut mangoes, it really is hilarious. Us ordinary working people simply can’t afford all that. We were never wealthy; we’re just smallholders and market traders. Please, don’t go crazy.

● Apricot jam, apricot kernels and dried apricots – do you know which one farmers can process and sell legally on their own? Image: A Yue

II. Farmers: How Did I Break the Law?

But for many farmers, the question is far more immediate: do the products I make count as dried goods? Will I be able to sell them in the future?

Dried vegetables, dried fruit, dried fish, dried meat – which of these require a food production licence?

More specifically: do Sichuan peppercorns and star anise count as dried goods? Do dried beans count as dried goods?

Dried chillies can no longer be sold, but “crushing” has been retained in the definition of edible agricultural products – so is selling chilli powder legal?

Although the market regulation authorities have yet to issue any more detailed guidance, judging purely from the text of the regulations and policies currently available, once “dried products” are excluded from the category of “edible agricultural products”, all processed agricultural products involving drying could potentially be affected.

And dried products come in a bewildering variety. The food safety risk of dried meat products and that of dried fruits and vegetables may be entirely different. In practice, can enforcement really avoid a one-size-fits-all approach?

In fact, these questions have been troubling farmers for years. After Monday’s article went live, many fellow farmers shared their observations and frustrations.

A young returnee from the land of Hangzhou white chrysanthemum: I have never understood it. Hangzhou white chrysanthemum is simply dried in an oven – why does selling it require qualifications from a food processing factory?
A farmer in Beijing: All kinds of grains count as dried goods, and so do all sorts of dried mushrooms. This regulation is textbook bureaucracy – they’re making it so absurd that even the sun should just take a rest.
A social-sector worker focused on pastoral areas: In Inner Mongolia, air-dried meat made by herders has long been barred from direct sale.
A young rural development worker in the Central Plains: The first time I heard that dried wild mushrooms needed a food processing factory qualification was back in 2018. I was baffled – why would wild mushrooms, dried in the sun, require a factory licence before they could be sold? Things like dried mushrooms, dried chillies, wood ear mushrooms – the principle of sun-drying and oven-drying is the same. You’re just removing the moisture. It’s not that complicated; farmers can handle it perfectly well themselves. But to sell legally now, a farmer has to dry the produce, take it to a licensed processing factory, pay the factory to package or dry it further, and only then can it be sold under the factory’s licence.

A young returnee in Sichuan: It just feels absurd. Something as simple as drying is not allowed to be done by farmers – it must all be handed over to factories, and they dress it up as improving quality and safety. Farming is hard enough already, and now the space available to farmers keeps shrinking. They insist that farmers may only grow the most basic grain and vegetables – no simple primary processing at all.
In fact, the Food Production Licence Classification Catalogue published by the State Administration for Market Regulation already provides a detailed list of dried products from vegetables, fruit, edible fungi and aquatic produce. Once “drying” is removed from the list of processing methods for edible agricultural products, all dried vegetables, fruit, edible fungi, aquatic produce, meat and the like must obtain a production licence before they can enter the market. This effectively excludes smallholders who do simple processing at home altogether.

● The specific classification of vegetable and fruit products in the Food Production Licence Classification Catalogue. As can be seen, in addition to dried products, various pickled, canned and jam products also require a food production licence.

III. Smallholder Processing Is the Foundation of Industrial Revitalisation

In March this year, President Xi Jinping published an article in Qiushi magazine, reiterating the relationship between farmers and rural revitalisation, particularly regarding local specialities:

Industrial revitalisation is the top priority of rural revitalisation and the starting point for practical work. Without industry, rural areas will struggle to attract people, let alone retain talent; farmers’ pathways to higher incomes will remain narrow, and cultural activities will be hard to sustain. As localities advance industrial revitalisation, they must think deeply about these three characters – 土特产 (local specialities)… ensuring that the value added to agricultural products stays in rural areas and benefits farmers.

In fact, for thousands of years, farmers have increased their incomes, extended the shelf life of ingredients and hedged against the risks of market volatility by making their own processed products, and the local specialities found across the country are a testament to farmers’ wisdom and experience. Foodthink’s readers noticed this too, and commented to share their observations.

Reader Meihong: Removing “drying” is simply unreasonable. When farmers cannot sell their produce locally, drying is what allows it to travel far and fetch a good price.
Reader Rabbit Is Adorable: Sometimes fresh produce doesn’t fetch a good price due to market fluctuations. Rather than sell at a loss, many farmers choose to process fresh vegetables into dried goods for sale – on the one hand this opens up a new market for their produce, and on the other it provides some income. If sales are simply banned in a one-size-fits-all sweep, the blow to farmers – smallholders in particular – will be devastating. In fact, market response shows that consumers actually prefer products made by farmers themselves. In my observation, household-level production tends to be smaller in volume, which makes it harder to cut corners, and quality and safety are better assured. Besides, every region has its own dietary habits; what people buy and eat is well established and everyone knows their own mind. It is the small workshops that have reached a certain scale of production that truly need more oversight.

A young returnee in Yunnan: At our local farmers’ market, there used to be areas where small traders were allowed to sell their own produce on the street. But from last year to this year it has become particularly strict – no street selling is allowed at all, with the excuse that it doesn’t meet urban hygiene standards. If farmers have no opportunity to sell their own products, everyone can only toil to grow them and then sell to the middlemen. Whatever price the middlemen offer, that is the price you get. Farmers have no say whatsoever.

4. Farmers Building Their Own Factories

Is Contract Processing Feasible?
Once the new administrative regulations take effect, the processing of all manner of dried goods can only be carried out by enterprises holding a food production licence. Can farmers obtain a production licence themselves, or find a suitable contract processor? Among the fellow farmers we know well, many run family farms or cooperatives and already belong to the better-resourced, more capable end of Chinese farming. Even they report that, under the current requirements, building their own factory is simply not feasible, and contracting out to a factory involves a host of difficulties: costs are too high, distances are too great, volumes are too small for anyone to take the order, and so on.

A young returnee running a family farm in Guangxi: We don’t have many factories locally, so they are very hard to find. First off, you simply don’t know anyone! Factories have their own products to make, and many rely on volume to earn a thin profit. So they simply don’t have the time to deal with you.

Then there are factories that specialise in contract processing, but their fees are really not low. For example, last year I sent 3 kg of dried roses to a factory to be processed into rose essence paste – they produced less than 30 grams of essence and charged me 600 yuan.

A farmers’ cooperative leader in Yunnan: If we have to build a factory ourselves, the cost is too high. If we look for contract processing, some products can’t even find a local factory, and the round-trip transport cost to another area is far too high. If the volume doesn’t reach a certain threshold, no factory is willing to take the job. And if you do hit that volume, you’re not sure you can sell it all. Take walnuts, for instance – our area produces enormous quantities, but there are almost no factories nearby that hold an SC (food production licence). The one or two that do – there’s no guarantee they’d let us use them.

For wild mushrooms, some can be contract-processed locally, but certain varieties, like dried yellow bolete slices, need to be sent to Kunming – the round-trip transport alone costs around 1,000 yuan, with processing costs on top. We haven’t actually made enquiries yet.

For most dried goods, the normal arrangement is that farmers dry them themselves and then traders come to collect. Take beans, for example – farmers can sun-dry them on their own. If you’re forced to build a proper factory, the cost just goes up.

It’s only things like mushrooms that, in the last decade or so, some people have started wanting to collect and process collectively, mainly to improve the appearance. In recent years our cooperative has also been collecting everyone’s fresh mushrooms, managing them centrally and drying them together. So from a labour-saving perspective, farmers are happy to have less to do. What farmers really care about is which arrangement will add a little to their income.

A reader in northeast China: My parents at home want to sell some of the agricultural products from their own plot, so they went to consult the Market Regulation Bureau and were told they need to obtain various permits. Yesterday they got their business licence, but they also need a small workshop production licence, a food production licence, and a food business licence. For many farmers, navigating all this paperwork is extremely difficult. The dried goods farmers make are basically seasonal vegetables and fruit from their own land – they only dry the surplus they can’t eat at home and sell the odd bit; making dried goods is not their main trade. Requiring them to obtain a whole suite of licences just to sell a small portion of homemade dried goods is, frankly, asking too much.

A farmer in Sichuan and a farmer from the land of Hangzhou white chrysanthemum joking with each other: “Dried chillies and Hangzhou white chrysanthemums have finally been treated the same.”

“Is this the start of dried chillies being put on a par with Hangzhou white chrysanthemums in price?”

V. What Happens Next?

In the face of these regulatory amendments, what exactly should we do? Before the regulations are finalised, there is still time. Foodthink is also preparing to continue gathering voices from all sides and, before the consultation period closes this Sunday, to submit a set of proposed amendments to the State Administration for Market Regulation. If you have any views on the revision, you are welcome to leave a comment below. If you would like to submit feedback yourself, need support, or wish to make your voice heard alongside ours, you are also welcome to add Foodthink’s personal WeChat: foodthinkcn, or scan the QR code below to add us, noting “食用农产品” (edible agricultural products) and briefly introducing yourself. We will invite you into a group for discussion.

For specific details on the amendments to the Measures for the Supervision and Administration of the Quality and Safety of Edible Agricultural Products in Market Sales, as well as how to submit feedback, please refer to our earlier article, or click here to view the relevant information directly on the Ministry of Justice website.

Editor: Shitong Jun