The quality and safety supervision department of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs recently addressed reporters' questions regarding the National Plan for Improving Agricultural Product Quality during the 15th Five-Year Plan Period, emphasizing the goal of meeting the public's demand for safe, reassuring, nutritious, and healthy food, and promoting a shift in agriculture from being产量-led to placing equal weight on both output and quality.
Currently, the public's demand for agricultural product supply is shifting from "whether it exists" to "whether it is good," with higher requirements placed on quality and safety, nutritional health, and flavor quality while ensuring sufficient quantity and rich variety.
This shift stems from the continuous expansion of China's agricultural output and increasingly stringent oversight in the food safety sector.
Data shows that in 2024 and 2025, China's grain output remained stable above 1.4 trillion jin for two consecutive years. Meanwhile, supplies of "shopping basket" products such as fruits, vegetables, tea, meat, eggs, milk, and aquatic products have been abundant. The national routine monitoring pass rate for agricultural product quality and safety reached 98% for two consecutive years, and the supply of green, organic, famous, special, excellent, new, and geographical indication agricultural products has continued to increase.
However, problems in the food safety sector still cannot be ignored.
Food is the first necessity of the people, and safety is the first priority of food. Any incident in the food safety sector attracts intense public attention. Recently, relevant departments have successively announced several incidents involving food safety, including "formaldehyde cabbage" and "sulfur-fumigated bamboo shoots."
The Plan explicitly states in its overall requirements that the goal is to meet the public's demand for safe, reassuring, nutritious, and healthy food, with coordinated efforts across all links from production to circulation to consumption.
During the 15th Five-Year Plan period, the national routine monitoring pass rate for agricultural product quality and safety must remain stable above 98%.
A complete standards system must be built first, with strict supervision and severe penalties closely following, in order to achieve tangible results.
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