Pesticide Residue Testing Sites: The Last Line of Defense for People's Food Safety

With the continuous advancement of cultivation techniques, the growing season for vegetables has become increasingly shorter. However, with increasing environmental pollution, vegetable pests and diseases are becoming more severe, requiring most vegetables to undergo multiple applications of pesticides before they can mature and be sold. Whether there are pesticide residues in vegetables in the market has always been a perplexing question. Recently, many regions in my country have established rapid testing laboratories to effectively improve food safety levels.

Rapid Testing Vehicle Tests for Pesticide Residues in 15 Minutes

Before the Spring Festival, the Shandong Provincial Food and Drug Administration launched a unified "Rapid Food Testing in Markets" campaign across 17 cities in the province. This campaign involved 173 county (city, district) bureaus setting up "Rapid Food Testing in Markets" points at 575 sales locations, including shopping malls, supermarkets, and farmers' markets, where peak holiday consumption occurs. The tests primarily targeted key products such as fresh meat, vegetables, and aquatic products.

At the entrance of the Qinzhuang Farmers' Market in Rencheng District, a conspicuous mobile food testing vehicle was parked. Zhao Heng, deputy general manager of Shandong Symons Biotechnology Co., Ltd., who was in charge of technical testing on the vehicle, explained that the mobile food safety testing unit is a small, rapid testing laboratory. Enforcement officers on board can use various rapid testing equipment, such as a pesticide residue rapid detector and a food safety intelligent analyzer, to quickly test multiple indicators of food. For common tests like pesticide residues in vegetables and clenbuterol in pork, the entire process, from receiving the food in the vehicle to obtaining the results, generally takes only about 15 minutes.

After receiving the fresh meat sample in the testing unit, staff began testing for clenbuterol. They first boiled the sample in a water bath for 10 minutes, extracting some liquid, which was then dripped onto a test card. After about 5 minutes, the test card showed no clenbuterol, indicating the meat was合格 (qualified/compliant).

Subsequently, on the testing unit, the reporter also saw a printed pesticide residue test result for celery, showing no detectable sulfur dioxide or formaldehyde, indicating a合格 (qualified/compliant) result.

Changsha, Hunan Province, will establish 100 pesticide residue testing stations.

On March 4th, the Changsha Municipal Government held its first press conference on creating a national food safety city. Guo Gong, Director of the Changsha Municipal Food Safety Office and Director of the Changsha Municipal Food and Drug Administration, announced that starting this year, Changsha will build 100 rapid pesticide residue testing rooms in farmers' markets and fresh food supermarkets, striving to gradually promote this initiative over two years to effectively improve food safety levels.

"Farmers' markets and fresh food supermarkets are places that people frequently come into contact with in their daily consumption. Starting this year, Changsha will build 100 rapid testing rooms in farmers' markets and fresh food supermarkets," Guo Gong explained. The testing stations will focus on detecting pesticide residues and illegal food additives. If consumers are concerned about the food they purchase, they can have it tested on-site at the rapid testing room, and the test information will be uploaded to the Changsha Food and Drug Administration's information website. 

The focus is on guiding small workshops producing bean products, rice noodles, and wet noodles to centralized production bases for standardized production, gradually eliminating unlicensed and unregistered workshops and those selling products on-site in farmers' markets. Products without permits or of unknown origin are strictly prohibited from sale and purchase. Since last year, districts and counties in Changsha have begun to gradually establish centralized bean product production and processing bases. After more than a year of construction, nine centralized bean product production and processing bases have been established in Changsha, with over 80% of small bean product workshops operating within these bases. For rice noodle and wet noodle production and processing enterprises, the goal is to achieve a 100% licensing rate within one to two years.

In Sanya, Hainan, multiple markets and supermarkets have set up pesticide residue testing points for fruits and vegetables.

When buying vegetables at markets or supermarkets, if you are concerned about pesticide residues, you can request on-site testing. Since the launch of free pesticide residue testing points in May 2015, Sanya, Hainan, has set up free pesticide residue testing points for fruits and vegetables in 12 large supermarkets and 15 major farmers' markets throughout the city. 

In 2015, the Provincial Party Committee and Provincial Government listed "setting up free pesticide residue testing points in major supermarkets and some farmers' markets" as one of the ten practical things to do for the people. In accordance with the work requirements of the Provincial Party Committee and Provincial Government, starting in May 2015, Sanya conducted surveys and inspections of farmers' markets and supermarkets throughout the city, and on this basis, selected 12 supermarkets and 15 farmers' markets as the construction units for free testing points.

"We adopted a pilot-standardization and gradual improvement approach," according to a relevant official from the Municipal Food and Drug Administration. To further standardize and improve the construction of free testing points, Sanya selected the Second Farmers' Market, Tengqiao Comprehensive Market, Ganghua Farmers' Market, and Wanghao Supermarket Shengli Road Store as pilot sites. These sites were equipped with pesticide residue detectors that are of stable quality, have high detection accuracy, and have data storage and printing functions, as well as testing reagents, television displays, refrigerators, computers, cameras, and other facilities and equipment to improve the efficiency of rapid testing. Following the pilot program, pesticide residue rapid testing instruments and reagents were purchased for the remaining 12 farmers' markets to support the construction of free testing sites, gradually achieving the goal of standardized, prominent, fully functional, and normally operating testing sites.

After more than six months of implementation, the city's 27 free pesticide residue testing sites have now received 278 consumer tests and tested 440 batches of fruits and vegetables, effectively ensuring food safety for the public.