Inside the Olympics Food Security Apparatus
How is Beijing ensuring the safety of food supplies for Olympic athletes, and what are the issues surrounding the stepped-up security. Tim Johnson visits the farm of Lin Yuan, an Olympic vegetable supplier, for the Minneapolis Star-Tribune:
Lin is providing nine products for Olympic competitors. The farm mainly uses manure and few chemical fertilizers, he said, relying heavily on natural pest-management techniques. It employs a sophisticated electronic-tagging system to track outgoing vegetable shipments.
…If security is high at Lin’s vegetable farm, a premium provider for the Olympic Village, it’s even higher at the ranches and livestock pens that will provide meat for the athletes. Pork for Olympic athletes comes from 10 secret pig farms set up far away from cities, state media report. The pigs get two hours of exercise a day, eat organic feed and are monitored around the clock.
…In some ways the matter shows the delicate balance as China tries to overcome long-held foreign suspicions about the safety of its food without stirring up citizens, who may wonder why even the pigs get such special treatment when it comes to what’s served to foreigners.
