By Su Yang, Zhao Xinrui & Rong Weiwei

Research Report Vol.20 No.4, 2018

The people’s livelihood survey in 2017 reflected an obvious improvement in the overall satisfaction rate of the public regarding food safety. Most residents believe that the overall situation of food safety in their residence has improved, and that they have confidence in further improvement in the future. The present improvement momentum reflects that the public has gradually recognized the government’s efforts, but still has a higher expectation on food safety supervision. The survey showed that food safety work still had weak links that are yet to be addressed, and close attention should be paid to such prominent problems as food additives and channels development of food safety protection.

I. Public Evaluation of Food Safety

1. The overall satisfaction rate of food safety had obviously increased, but there were great differences among different groups

The satisfaction rate of food safety greatly improved in 2017. The telephone survey showed that 14.4% and 32.9% of the respondents indicated that they were “very satisfied” and “quite satisfied” respectively with the current food safety situation in their places of residence. The total of the above two items groups amounted to 47.3%, up 7 percentage points over 2016 (see Figure 1), reflecting that the food safety satisfaction rate of the respondents had indeed improved significantly.

Different groups had the following characteristics: (1) the food safety satisfaction rate of the population with higher education level (above undergraduate level) was obviously improved. Since 2013, the food safety satisfaction rate of the respondents with a bachelor’s degree or above has been increasing year by year. Except for those who had never received schooling, the food safety satisfaction rate of the people with a bachelor’s degree was the highest in 2017, amounting to 49.0%. During the 12th Five-year Plan Period, the higher the level of education, the lower the food safety satisfaction rate, but such situation has been changed now. (2) People with higher household incomes were more satisfied with food safety. The telephone survey showed that the satisfaction rate of households with an annual income of RMB 150,000-250,000 yuan and RMB 250,000-500,000 yuan was 51.3% and 52.8% respectively, which were the highest. It was found out that generally people with a higher household income had a higher food safety satisfaction rate, obviously different from that in the 12th Five-year Plan Period.

There was still a gap between urban and rural areas concerning the satisfaction rate of food safety. The results of the telephone survey showed that 12.4% and 33.0% of the urban respondents were “very satisfied” and “relatively satisfied” with the current food safety situation in their residence respectively, accounting for 45.4% of the total. For rural respondents, these two figures were 17.8% and 32.7% of the rural respondents respectively, accounting for 50.5% of the total.

The satisfaction rate of food safety in urban areas was still lower than that in rural areas, but the gap between urban and rural areas was gradually narrowing, from 15 percentage points in 2013 to 6 percentage points in 2017, while urban residents’ satisfaction rate was growing faster.

2. Most residents believed that the overall situation of food safety in their residence had improved, and they had confidence in further improvement in the future

In the telephone survey, when answering the question “whether there was any improvement in the food safety situation in your residence in the past year”, 19.8% and 31.7% of the respondents chose “obvious improvement” and “slight improvement”, respectively, accounting for 51.5% of the total, indicating that more than half of the public thought that the food safety situation had begun to improve. If divided by age, education or income, teenagers of 18-19 years old, people of a bachelor’s degree and people with a family income of RMB 150,000-250,000 yuan had higher evaluation on the improvement of food safety in their places of residence.

The household survey also revealed that 15.3% of the respondents believed that the food safety situation in China would definitely improve in the next three years, 52.8% of the respondents believed that it would gradually improve, and 17.8% of the respondents believed that the food safety situation would possibly improve (see Table 1). From this, we can see that most residents have confidence in the improvement of food safety in the next three years, and the public is gradually recognizing the efforts to improve food safety.

3. The public still expected the government to strengthen food safety supervision

The results of the household survey showed that 10.2% and 37.5% of the respondents believed that “government supervision is very much in place” and “government supervision is relatively in place” respectively, accounting for 47.8% of the total. This result can reflect the public’s satisfaction with government supervision. Another 19.3% of the urban respondents believed that “the government has done a lot of work, but the effect is not very good”, 7.7 percentagepoints higher than that in rural areas. The results of the survey reflect that the public is aware of the government’s efforts of ensuring food safety, but the priority, focus and methods are yet to be optimized (Table 2).

The data of “government supervision effect and future confidence in food safety” in the household survey were tested for correlation. The correlation coefficient between public confidence in food safety improvement and evaluation on government supervision over food safety was 0.304. The respondents’ evaluation of government supervision over food safety was significantly correlated with their confidence in food safety improvement. That is, the government’s strengthening of food safety supervision can enhance the confidence of respondents in food safety (Table 3).

In terms of expected measures, the public believes that the key to solving food safety problems lies in strengthening government supervision and improving food safety standards. According to the household survey, 42.30% of the respondents believed that the responsibility of the supervisor should be strengthened and the inspection and enforcement should be stepped up, and 37.07% of the respondents believed that strict standards should be the primary measure to address food safety problems (see Figure 2).

II. The Weak Links in Food Safety Work as Reflected in the People’s Livelihood Survey

Safe food is the most fundamental need of the people for a better life. Although the public’s satisfaction rate with food safety has significantly improved, it is still at a relatively low level. The household survey showed that food safety was still less satisfactory when compared with other areas of people’s livelihood horizontally. The problems exposed through the household survey mainly include:

1. The quality of food itself is not high Compared with people’s expectations, the quality of food in China is still not high. The use of food additives in excess of limit is still common[]①, and especially the illegal addition of non-edible substances has occurred frequently. Since most media and the public cannot clearly distinguish between food additives and non-edible substances, the act of adding non-edible substances to food is also called “abuse of additives”, which further deepens the public’s impression about the disorder in the use of food additives. Of the problems found in 2017, the problems of pesticide and veterinary drug residues, heavy metal pollution and biological toxin pollution call for close attention. The problem of microbial contamination is still prevalent. Illegal use of additives and illegal addition are still persistent[]②.

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