Food Safety ( 08/08/01 ) | |||||
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Part | Charger | moonsj | date | 08/08/01 | |
Can We Finally Eat Them Without Worry?
The Lee Myung-bak administration, which has suffered from food-related troubles since its inauguration, has finally come up with a policy package.
For months, Korea seemed to be a nation on a health craze gripped with various risks ― both imagined and real ― ranging from mad cow fears to bird flu and also a series of alien substances in food products, such as a snack containing the head of a rodent and a can of tuna containing a razor blade. So the government's comprehensive countermeasures are not just welcome but inevitable.
The package contains almost every step imaginable to improve the nation's food safety to ``European levels". Those who are interested in this issue will, however, find all these measures are quite familiar. So the key lies in whether the government has the will to implement them this time.
Two elements are especially noteworthy in this regard ― the integration of a food safety-related administration into an agency under the Office of the Prime Minister and drastically toughened penalties. Again, however, there were interagency organizations and rules on harsh penalties. However, the organizations didn't work very well and the punishment was meted lightly under various excuses. For the latest package to have the desired effect, therefore, it is imperative the government confers the proposed agency with corresponding authority and punishes violators as the law stipulates.
Most important is to separate the executive and evaluating agencies of food safety administration to ensure sound check and balance. Officials should also conduct more transparent administrations by making public detailed processes of their operations. Needless to say, this requires replenishing infrastructure in terms of facilities and manpower, which in turn is not possible without sufficient budget allocation.
It is easy to set a goal aimed at advanced countries, but not so easy to make all major groups, namely the bureaucrats, businesses and consumers, to do their own lots. It is time that the three major players shared the responsibility for effective food administration. We all should do our share for safety on the dining table by introducing from ``croplands to chopsticks" ― the Korean version of America's from ``farm to fork" ― monitoring.
Regrettable in this regard was the government's omission of the food-related class action system, aimed at rooting out the corporate practices of playing with food for profiteering, apparently yielding to powerful industrial lobbies. The system might increase friction between consumers and businesses to an excessive level before taking root, but will prove essential in fundamentally changing unethical corporate practices.
It will not be easy to catch up with European countries in food safety levels in a short time. Only when the government puts its top priority on this matter will the gap between Korea and Western countries or that between the people's heightened awareness and the lagging administration be narrowed.
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/opinon/2008/07/202_27496.html
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