"Strictly" eliminate establishments violating food safety

In response to the need for food safety management at the end of the year, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Cao Duc Phat requested that in addition to sending officials to the grassroots to guide farmers on safe production, production and business establishments that violate food safety will be resolutely eliminated.

At the regular meeting on agricultural material quality management and food safety yesterday, the Department of Agricultural and Rural Development Quality Management said that the program to monitor the quality of livestock and poultry meat in the northern provinces recently showed that it has discovered many violations of food safety and banned substances in livestock farming.

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Specifically, for chicken meat samples, 4/54 samples were found to contain Campylobacter bacteria (a type of bacteria that causes diarrhea, penetrates intestinal cells without being detected and destroyed); 6/40 chicken meat samples tested positive for Chloramphenicol and Furazolidon (two banned substances in animal husbandry) and 4/40 samples were found to contain Tetracycline antibiotics (antibiotics used in veterinary medicine) exceeding the maximum allowable residue limit.

The Inspectorate of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development said that it has just discovered a case of transporting cattle from Thailand to Vietnam without carrying out quarantine. This agency is coordinating with the Department of Environmental Crime Prevention (Ministry of Public Security) to investigate a number of businesses using banned substances of Betagonist origin in livestock farming.

Regarding imported fruits and vegetables, the recent period has also shown a relatively large rate of violations. Specifically, over the past month, the authorities have taken 96 samples of vegetables, tubers, and fruits for food safety testing, and discovered 8 samples with pesticide residues exceeding the permitted threshold, including: 1 white radish sample, 5 tangerine samples, and 2 carrot samples.

“The imported fruit and vegetable samples were not tested properly, the rate of violations is quite high. In the last months of the year, the amount of vegetables and fruits in circulation is very large, so this is a matter of concern,” said Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Nguyen Thi Xuan Thu.

Not only imported products, the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development assessed that even the domestic production of food and vegetables has not shown any significant improvement in recent times. The Minister cited: Out of a total of 22,000 establishments registered to produce and trade in plant protection drugs, the authorities have only inspected less than 2,800 establishments; out of more than 10,000 establishments registered to trade in veterinary drugs, only 2,000 places have been inspected; the whole country currently has 17,400 slaughterhouses but only more than 2,000 points have been inspected. In particular, there are more than 1,100 establishments producing and trading in plant varieties but only 34 units have been inspected...

Faced with that situation, Minister Cao Duc Phat requested: From now until the end of the year, the amount of food and green vegetables is expected to be consumed in large quantities. Therefore, the issue of ensuring food safety and hygiene at specialized units of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development is given top priority. The Minister pointed out that strengthening the inspection and supervision of food safety and hygiene needs to focus on monitoring fresh vegetables, fruits, poultry and aquatic products at the slaughterhouse and wholesale markets.

According to NNVN