Food safety is a hot topic in China as well as in the world. There is a lot of debates on the food safety in China. How to help Chinese small farmers to produce agricultural products that meet the requirements for food safety is a big challenge for government officials and the companies related to small farmers. Between November 25 and December 4, the Small Farmers Adapting to Global Market (SFAGM) Project held a training workshop on food safety in Wuchuan County, Inner Mongolia, for the purposes of helping the local farmers to react to this challenge and enabling small farmers in the project pilot sites and even the whole of Western China to strengthen their quality and safety awareness in their production process.

The project made a meticulous arrangement for the activities of this training, invited renowned experts and scholars to give lectures, and organized the trainees to visit the food quality and safety systems in Beijing. At the training workshop, Wang Xinwu, a division director of General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, introduced the food safety supervision system in China; Prof. Dun Baoxiang, food chain consultant of Sino Analytica Qingdao, introduced how small farmers should play their roles in the food safety system; Mr. Li Guozhu, who came from Beijing Landbridge Quality Inspection Certification Center (BQC), introduced the development situation of organic agriculture and good agricultural certification in China; Mr. Wang Fudong, manager of Beijing Tian’an Agriculture Development Co. Ltd, introduced the food safety and agricultural product tracing system; Li Wu, a research fellow from Beijing Vegetable Research Institute, introduced the influence of Beijing Olympic Games on the development of food safety in China, and Gao Lipu, another research fellow, introduced the food safety guarantee following the harvest of vegetables. These two experts from Beijing Vegetable Research Institute attended the training on farm food safety guarantee held in Canada in early November, and they shared with the trainees the knowledge of food safety they had learnt in Canada. Mr. Yang Chun, who came from Inner Mongolia Academy of Environmental Science, introduced the development of organic agriculture in Inner Mongolia and analyzed the possibility of how small farmers should build the organic agriculture system. Zheng Shufang, also a research fellow from Beijing Vegetable Research Institute, introduced the guarantee of food safety before agricultural products are harvested. Carrefour (China) also provided support for the activities of this training, and its manager in charge of the quality of fresh products, Ms. Sun Yulong, made a special trip to Wuchuan and shared with the trainees Carrefour’s experience of successful cooperation with Chinese small farmers, and she introduced Carrefour’s quality system.

After the training in Wuchuan, the project organized some of the trainees to visit the food safety system in Beijing. On the morning of December 2, accompanied by Li Wu, a research fellow of Beijing Vegetable Research Institute, and a staff member from Vegetable Office of Daxing District, the trainees first visited the production base of organic vegetables at Liuminying Village. Located in Daxing District of Beijing, Liuminying Village had become widely known as an eco-village as early as in the 1980s. It is an agricultural eco-village designated by the United Nations, and it is also one of the production bases of organic vegetables in China. Mr. Zhang Chaozeng, manager of the eco-farm of Liuminying Village, introduced how they have constructed the eco-village, and how they produce and sell organic vegetables. On the afternoon of that day, they all came to Hancunhe - a demo site of new countryside construction in Beijing, to visit the good agricultural demonstration base. Hancunhe has the-state-of-the-art agricultural production facilities and advanced management technology. The trainees had a heartfelt admiration for Hancunhe’s achievements in the construction of a new countryside, and believed that it represents the future of China’s rural area development.

On December 3, the trainees went to Shunyi to visit Green Olympic Vegetable Co-op, which is one of the pilot co-ops authorized by Ministry of Agriculture. In the morning, the trainees visited the co-op’s environmentally-friendly vegetable production base and learned how the co-op members conduct food safety control in their production of vegetables. In the afternoon, the trainees had an informal discussion with the president of Green Olympic Co-op to get to know the development history of the co-op, the relationship between the co-op and its members, how the co-op provides service for its members, and the president of the co-op answered the trainees’ questions. Then, the trainees visited the packaging workshop of Beijing Tian’an Agricultural Development Co. Ltd. and understood food safety tracing system. Through these visits, the trainees have come to realize that farmers’ professional co-op is an important channel linking farmers to the market, and also an important agency for conducting food safety control and building the brand of agricultural products.

On December 4, the trainees visited Carrefour Shuangjing Shop and Ito-Yokado Supermarket No. 2 Shop. Looking at the beautifully-packaged vegetables in the supermarkets, they participants chatted with shop assistants and customers about the quality and the sales situation of agricultural products. The customers’ increasing demand for high quality and safety of agricultural products convinced the trainees that this was a very good market opportunity and they said they would build the food safety system and organize the production of high-quality agricultural products.

The participants of this training mostly came from the project sites of Sichuan and Inner Mongolia. The project site of Ulanqab, sponsored by agricultural development fund, also arranged for some project partners to participate in this training. The participants generally agreed that this training was highly operable, and that it would be of great help to their work for food safety in the future.