30% of Chinese fruit samples contain toxic chemical residues

Inadequacies in testing food safety issues for imported agricultural products are one of the reasons why unsafe products appear on the market.

Fruit samples were used for testing.

30% of Chinese fruit samples tested by the Ho Chi Minh City Plant Protection Department showed toxic chemical residues. 17 Chinese shipments with a quantity of about 280 tons were discovered by authorities to have pesticide residues exceeding the permitted threshold and were sold out in 2013.

Consecutive reports on the quality of agricultural products have been published, causing confusion among consumers. To investigate this issue, a group of VTV reporters followed a convoy of trucks carrying imported agricultural products at Tan Thanh Border Gate.

14 hours at the Tan Thanh Border Gate import goods collection area, Lang Son. Dozens of trucks carrying agricultural products are waiting to take samples for plant quarantine and food safety inspection. However, for a truck carrying 10 tons of peaches, the quarantine staff only randomly took 2kg to save effort and unloading costs.

The peaches will then be taken to a quarantine room a few hundred meters away. However, the quarantine room only checks to see if the fruit is infected with pests or not. Food safety issues such as pesticide residues, preservatives and toxic substances that can directly affect the health of consumers must be brought to the Northern Plant Protection Drug Testing and Inspection Center in Hanoi for testing.

Ms. Nguyen Thi Ha, Head of the Plant Quarantine Sub-Department of Region 7, said: “All shipments are inspected and sampled according to regulations, but food safety inspection only checks a maximum of 10% of the shipments. After that, we continue to send them to the designated testing rooms of the Plant Protection Department to continue testing to see what active ingredient the pesticide residue is and what the threshold percentage is.”

After sampling, the fruits will not be brought back to Hanoi immediately but will be kept in a storage cabinet to wait for more samples. Normally, it will take about 2 days to have enough samples to be tested.

Meanwhile, the truck carrying 10 tons of peaches that had just been sampled was going through customs procedures. Due to the open mechanism, creating favorable conditions for businesses, after only 30 minutes, the customs clearance procedures were completed. At 3:00 p.m., the truck started rolling out of the border gate.

9pm, at Long Bien wholesale market. The imported peaches were sold to small traders and the next morning, at the retail market, the peaches were on display but it is unknown when the samples will be brought to the testing center in Hanoi. If they are brought back immediately, it will take 10 days to have official results on whether these peaches are contaminated with toxic substances or not.

According to VTV Online