Shenzhen Supermarket Produce Covered in Unsafe Pesticides
Posted: 11/20/2014 12:11 pmShenzhen is no stranger to food scandals, and it appears another issue has cropped up that is giving buyers of fresh produce some concern.
A recent study by Ceda Farm Produce Test Center, which tests farm produce headed to Hong Kong, found that 11 percent of produce sampled from Shenzhen supermarkets and wet markets contained unsafe levels of pesticide residue.
The center conducted tests on 473 samples of meat and vegetables from 39 locations to obtain its results, which prompted lawmakers to call a hearing with representatives of the local food safety watchdog.
A local lawmaker named Huang Xiang said the government had previously been told that only 4 percent of the city’s produce had pesticide levels that were too high. He questioned why this discrepancy existed.
The representative from the city’s farm produce testing center, Wang Duojia, claimed that the test could have been skewed by a number of things. Lawmakers were not satisfied by this explanation and implored the city’s food safety watchdog to improve.
