30 September 2015
The harvest has come early to a small organic farm just outside Beijing. Workers can only manage a brief smile and a glance upwards as they place vegetables into boxes bound for market.
Standing in the background is Liu Yujing. She sticks out as the only one not covered in dirt. That’s because she’s just here to watch. She runs an organics delivery business that buys vegetables from this farm and others. Ms Liu started her company with other concerned parents, not for profit, but out of fear.
“In the very beginning, I just wanted to find safe food for my daughter,” she explains. “Other mums and I read books on food safety issues. We realised how serious the problems were and decided to do something ourselves.”
Ms Liu admits that her delivery service, the Green League, has fought an uphill battle to find farmers willing to use organic methods. And also, to locate customers willing to pay more for clean food.
A Chinese man selects milk powder at a supermarket in Beijing on July 9, 2010. Chinese authorities have seized 76 tonnes of milk powder tainted with melamine, the same chemical responsible for the deaths of six babies two years ago, state media said.Image copyrightAFP
In 2008 China had one of its worst food scares when baby milk powder was found to be tainted with melamine and six infants died
‘Decades-old frozen meat’
“When we started in 2010, many consumers didn’t know what organic meant,” Ms Liu explains. “They asked me, is organic a type of chemical? Now, they know. More and more people are promoting this concept.”
Not everyone in China can afford to source their own relatively expensive organic vegetables. Many depend on the government to fix the growing food safety problem.
Fake rice made of plastic pellets, imitation eggs made out of gelatine, and decades-old frozen meat destined for market – China has had more than its fair share of food scandals in recent years.
The most jarring – infant formula tainted with the industrial chemical melamine. In 2008, it caused babies’ kidneys to malfunction – killing six infants and hospitalising 300,000 others.
A recent poll from the Pew Research Center reveals that concerns over food safety have tripled in China since the milk crisis of 2008. More than a third of people believe persistent safety issues with the country’s food is a “very big problem”.
