What is the food safety supervision system in Japan?

1. Japanese food safety management agencies and their responsibilities

Japanese law clearly stipulates that the administrative departments in charge of food safety are the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries and the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare. The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries is mainly responsible for the safety of fresh agricultural products and their rough products, focusing on the production and processing stages of these agricultural products; The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare is responsible for the safety of other foods and imported foods, focusing on the import and circulation stages of these foods. According to the amendment of the new Food Hygiene Law, Japan officially implemented the positive list system in May 2006, that is, it prohibited the circulation of food containing pesticides that did not set the maximum residue limit standard and whose content exceeded the unified standard. Japan has established a perfect agricultural product quality and safety inspection and supervision system. There are 48 prefectures (counties) and 58 food quality inspection institutions in China, which are responsible for the monitoring, identification and evaluation of agricultural products and food, as well as market access and market supervision and inspection entrusted by governments at all levels. The Consumer Technical Service Center of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries of Japan has seven sub-centers, which are responsible for the investigation and analysis of the quality and safety of agricultural products, accepting consumer complaints, and handling the supervision and management of organic food certification and certified products. The Consumer Technology Service Center keeps close contact with local agricultural service institutions, collects relevant information and accepts supervision and guidance, thus forming a multi-level inspection and supervision system for the quality and safety of agricultural products from farmland to table.

In recent years, food safety crises have occurred frequently in Japan. Especially after the mad cow disease occurred in Japan on 200 1 2000, it was found that the National Agricultural Association and others maliciously deceived consumers and passed imported meat off as domestic meat with false labels, which broke the "safety myth" of Japanese food and made people panic about various diseases that might be transmitted from food to people. On July 1 day, 2003, the Food Safety Committee of the Cabinet Office of Japan was finally formally established after a long period of brewing. As a result, the Japanese government's division of functions in food safety has undergone major changes. Its main responsibility is to carry out food safety risk assessment. Responsible for organizing or accepting the consultation of the departments responsible for the specific management of food safety risks (hereinafter referred to as risk management departments) such as the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Water Resources, the Ministry of Health and Welfare, and conducting inspection and risk assessment on food safety through scientific analysis. According to the risk assessment results, the risk management department is required to take countermeasures and supervise the implementation. In addition, with the Committee as the core, a risk information communication mechanism with extensive participation of relevant government agencies, consumers and producers is established to comprehensively manage risk information communication.

The Food Safety Committee of the Cabinet Office of Japan is the highest decision-making body, consisting of seven members, all of whom are non-governmental experts. With the approval of the National Assembly, they are appointed by the Prime Minister for a term of three years. The task force will be composed of 200 task force members (including part-time), all of whom are folk experts, with a term of three years. The special investigation will be divided into three evaluation expert groups: ① Chemical substance evaluation group. Responsible for evaluating food additives, pesticides, veterinary drugs, utensils and container packaging, chemicals, pollutants, etc. ② Biological assessment group. Responsible for evaluating microorganisms, viruses, molds and natural toxins. ③ New Food Evaluation Group. Responsible for risk assessment of genetically modified food, feed fertilizer, newly developed food, etc.

2. Japanese food safety legal system

Japan's food safety laws and regulations system consists of basic laws and a series of professional and specialized laws and regulations. The Food Hygiene Law and the Basic Law on Food Safety are two basic laws. The Food Hygiene Law was promulgated in 1948, and has been revised many times, the latest revision was in May 2003. This law is the most important code for controlling food quality, safety and hygiene in Japan, and it has extremely detailed regulations on all foods, including food, food additives, natural spices, facilities and equipment (except agriculture and aquaculture), food packaging containers and so on. The law prohibits the sale of foods containing toxic and harmful substances, or foods that do not meet the current production and ingredient storage standards, as well as equipment and packaging containers that do not meet the specifications and standards prescribed by law. Japan promulgated the Basic Law on Food Safety in 2003. The law establishes the food safety concepts of "consumer first", "scientific risk assessment" and "monitoring from farm to table", requires food safety in all links of the food supply chain imported from home and abroad, and allows preventive import embargo.

In Japan, there are many professional and specialized laws and regulations related to food safety, including food quality and hygiene, agricultural products quality, inputs (pesticides, veterinary drugs, feed additives, etc. ) quality, animal epidemic prevention and plant protection. Learning point