Food inspection results will be made public.

This is the affirmation of Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Cao Duc Phat in the program "People ask, Minister answers" on December 23.

Food quality control will be strengthened. Illustrative photo

Minister Cao Duc Phat answered the pressing issues regarding food safety and hygiene: How can people have safe meals? How can we limit the use of pesticides and preservatives in agricultural, forestry and fishery products? How can people feel more secure about food quality?

Recently, the situation of food safety and hygiene has made people worried. That requires the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD), the specialized management agency, to take effective measures to regain people's trust.

Minister Cao Duc Phat affirmed that the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development always listens and does its best to meet people's expectations. Accordingly, on the one hand, it directs the entire system to perform its functions well, and on the other hand, it continuously checks and supervises to publicly announce the actual situation so that people know the actual situation.

Every year, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development has directed strict implementation of sampling and announcement of results. Up to now, for fruits and vegetables, 4.5% of samples have pesticide residue exceeding the permitted threshold. Minister Cao Duc Phat said that this is still a high level compared to developed countries, so the authorities will have to try harder to reduce this rate.

Regarding banned substances used by livestock farmers, the Minister said that when the authorities intervened, the situation had improved. Recent test results showed that the rate of meat containing banned substances had decreased, averaging from 0.4% to 3.8%. However, the rate of samples with microorganisms in meat was still high, in some places up to 30% in meat products, and 6.6% in fish.

Although these are positive results, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development needs to take more measures to control the situation in order to reduce the use of banned substances and additives in livestock farming.

According to Minister Cao Duc Phat, the first thing is to build a legal corridor for not only the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development but also localities, businesses and people to implement. The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development directs its specialized agencies to guide farmers and businesses to implement safe production processes. In addition, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development also encourages and creates conditions for farmers and businesses to properly implement regulations on food safety and hygiene.

Second, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development will strengthen the system of monitoring product quality before it is put on the market, including domestically produced and imported goods, and will publicly announce the monitoring results without concealment so that people know and can make good choices.

Responding to the fact that in 2012, people were not confident about the quality of many types of imported agricultural products and food and needed effective measures to prevent it, Minister Cao Duc Phat said that recently, we have imported a large amount of agricultural products and food. Through inspection, basically, the imported products met the quality requirements. Some cases were found to have violated food safety regulations and were handled according to the law. In particular, many cases were forced to re-export to the exporting country.

Regarding the discovery of banned substances in agricultural products and food imported through unofficial channels exceeding permitted regulations, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development has increased control and notified relevant countries for coordination in handling.

Another issue that people are concerned about is the unsanitary conditions in the transportation and slaughter of livestock and poultry, which is also a cause of food safety and hygiene. Minister Cao Duc Phat admitted that this shows that regulations on hygiene and safety in the slaughter of livestock and poultry have not been strictly implemented. Therefore, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development will direct competent agencies and coordinate with localities to strengthen inspection and urge the implementation of legal regulations...

According to (Chinhphu.vn) – LT