Organic Food in China

Reuters ^ | Sun May 27, 11:59 AM ET | Ben Blanchard and Niu Shuping

[whitedog57]

BEIJING (Reuters) - Fish could give you cancer, snails meningitis and baby milk may kill your children -- barely a day goes by without some new food horror story in China.

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This is helping drive sales in another, though still tiny, food sector in China -- organic produce.

But a loose regulatory framework and sometimes just plain confusion about what exactly constitutes organic food has proven to be a stumbling block, experts say.

"It's been a difficult start, but gradually there has become more of a domestic market, and I think it will take off in the next few years," said Paul Thiers, an associate professor at Washington State University.

[whitedog57]

I hate to think what they're using for fertilizers in organic farming what makes up organic food in China.

"Soylent Green is People!!!!" - Charlton Heston in the movie "Soylent Green"

[Veto!]

My uncle Jack was with the Army of Occupation in Japan right after WW2. He and his wife laughed about uncovered wooden trays of human waste people walked around with on their way to fertilize fields.

Times have changed in Japan, but China?

[whitedog57]

Not likely......

[Eric in the Ozarks]

I don’t think its Honey Bucket contents that are poisoning the food in mainland China. Since no one owns anything, nothing has any long term value so polluting it with chemicals, wastes from tanning factories, mining runoff, etc is part of everyday life.

[Veto!]

You’re probably right. How depressing. After decades of soul-shattering communism, many people just won’t give a hoot.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

I was an Army Brat in 1950s Japan. It was a time when most Japanese homes had a storage tank for human wastes and every six months or so, there would be a honey bucket campaign. We lived off base and the first indication that the three wheeled vacuum truck was coming was the arrival of 50 or 60 "empty" buckets, stacked up in a vacant lot.
Let's say these were well used buckets; the whole family knew they'd arrived within a few hours.
After they were all filled, a team of men would stack them on a flatbed semi for the trip to the countryside. Yokohama traffic always gave these trucks wide berth.

[Veto!]

Great story!