BEIJING — The Chinese agriculture ministry said a recent crackdown on the use of illegal veterinary drugs had significantly improved the quality and safety of the country’s seafood production.
Regulators said that in the last year, more than 30,000 inspectors had fanned out across the country, working to close shoddy seafood operations and enforce regulations against the use of banned antibiotics — like chloramphenicol and like malachite green, which has caused cancer in laboratory tests.
And in an unusual public acknowledgment, officials from the ministry’s fisheries bureau said that pollution and water-quality problems had become the biggest challenges facing China’s fish farming, or aquaculture industry.
“Water quality is the top issue for Chinese aquaculture,” Ding Xiaoming, the director for aquaculture in the fisheries bureau, said. “Without good water quality, Chinese aquaculture cannot develop.”
In a 30-minute interview at the agriculture ministry, Mr. Ding blamed China’s rapid urbanization and industrialization for polluting waterways that are used by fish farms, a situation that experts say forces some farmers to turn to illegal drugs to protect their fish stocks from disease.Continue reading the main story
He said the government was introducing an array of new programs and regulations to educate farmers and combat the quality problems.
The government’s effort is aimed at restoring confidence in Chinese seafood exports after a year of food and product safety problems involving a wide range of goods, including tainted seafood, toxic toys and toothpaste.
The stakes are significant because China is now the world’s leading producer and exporter of seafood and an important supplier to the United States and Japan. And with the seas increasingly depleted by overfishing, much of the world is turning to China’s land-based fish farms to meet growing demand.
But after years of spectacular growth, this country’s seafood industry is being threatened by water shortages, contaminated water supplies and illegal veterinary drug use.
In recent years, Japan and the European Union have imposed temporary bans on seafood imports from China because of excessive residues of illegal drugs. And in June, the United States Food and Drug Administration moved to block the import of several types of Chinese seafood products because of similar concerns.
Specialists here say Chinese fish farmers often turn to illegal veterinary drugs because they can help keep fish alive in overcrowded ponds that are sometimes contaminated by sewage, agricultural runoff and industrial chemicals. Some of the banned veterinary drugs are considered highly effective in helping stressed fish cope with disease.
But fish that are fed such drugs could be poisonous for consumers, regulators say. Last year, China had by far the largest number of seafood imports rejected by the United States, according to F.D.A. records. Most of the rejected shipments were linked to drug residues.
The Chinese government has responded aggressively in recent months by blacklisting seafood processors or revoking the licenses of companies that export seafood tainted with illegal drugs or other banned substances.
But China has also lashed out at the United States and other countries that blocked its food exports, insisting that the vast majority were safe and met quality standards and that media coverage has often been sensational and distorted.
Beijing has criticized an article in The New York Times in December, which an official acknowledged was accurate, that detailed challenges facing China’s seafood industry. The official noted that many producers had often used illegal veterinary drugs in connection with fishing or farming in polluted waters.
“It is a question of common sense. Do you believe that fish can live in toxic water?” another official, Vice Minister Gao Hongbin, said last week in response to a question from a Reuters reporter. “Personally, I believe that this report is sensational and misleading.”
The state-controlled news media were also critical of the article, quoting farmers and aquaculture officials as saying that the report was “totally groundless.”
But in the interview, Mr. Ding said the article was accurate.
The interview was cut short after Mr. Ding began acknowledging some of the industry’s problems and seemed to contradict other agricultural officials.
Another fisheries bureau official attending the interview cut off several questions, suddenly declaring, “Thank you for coming.”
Before the session ended, Mr. Ding said that regulators were having difficulty stopping polluters from damaging waterways used by fish farmers because much of the pollution occurred gradually.
While regulators acknowledge that small-scale farmers are difficult to police and crooked seafood processors give the industry a bad name, others insist that the food-safety worries are exaggerated and partly the result of protectionist efforts by interest groups in the United States and Japan seeking to stop China from gaining market share.
The seemingly contradictory statements may reflect divisions in the Chinese government over how to deal with a problem that could damage a valuable agricultural export.
Despite the food safety worries, China said its seafood exports grew to a record $8.7 billion in the year through November, although the rate of growth slowed to about 4 percent from 19 percent a year earlier.Continue reading the main story