“Before I started growing coffee, I couldn’t afford a house like the one I live in now,” said Wang Zhongxue, a robust 72-year-old who cuts a striking figure with his machete. “My house back then was made of mud and the living conditions were terrible. When it rained outside, it rained inside, too.”

Last year, Wang earned around $18,000 from his coffee plants. Chinese farmers on average earn about $900 a year ….

Nestle announces coffee prices every Monday and Thursday via text message to all the farmers’ cellphones.

“We also get 150 to 200 calls from other farmers checking on the price,” he said. “It’s up to the farmer to decide whether to sell. There is no contract. The farmers are free to choose.”

Wang, the elderly farmer, said his daughter and her friends track coffee prices on computers. “When the price goes up, we know it immediately,” he said.

Nestle’s interests in China are broad, expanding earlier this year with the purchase of a controlling stake in Yinlu Foods Group. From Associated Press:

The Vevey, Switzerland-based company said Monday it is taking a 60-percent stake in the well-known Chinese brand that already is a co-manufacturer for Nescafe instant coffee in China. Yinlu, whose ready-to-drink peanut milk and canned rice porridge are popular with Chinese consumers, had sales of around 750 million Swiss francs ($840 million) in 2010, Nestle said ….

Nestle reported sales of 2.8 billion francs ($3.13 billion) last year in China, where it already has 23 factories and 14,000 employees churning out coffee, bottled water, milk powder, confectionery and other products.

The company’s influence in China has not been limited to empowering and enriching colourful elderly farmers, however. In 2009, Greenpeace criticised the company for breaking pollution disclosure laws, while it has also drawn fire over melamine-tainted dairy products and baby food contaminated with heavy metals.

Starbucks is also moving into coffee cultivation in Yunnan, its first foray into “seed-to-cup” production. See earlier coverage of the chain’s invasion of China: Starbucks Celebrates China’s Morning Coffee Habit and Doughnut Wars Give Shanghai a Sugar Jolt.

See also an interview with Yunnan’s “Jedi Master” of coffee farming, via CDT:

“It’s a pity that we have to sell our coffee to other brands. The reason we’ve worked with companies like Nestle and Starbucks here is to learn their skills, management and brand building. One day, we’ll have our own famous brand; Americans will even know who we are.”

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2011. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: agriculture, coffee, coffee farming, melamine, Nestle, starbucks, tainted food, tea
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“Government departments at all levels must set up dedicated funds for a reward system for reporting on food safety,” the official Xinhua news agency cited a government directive as saying.

Rewards will be paid out if investigations prove the veracity of the tip-offs, it added.

Those who work for people or companies which adulterate food products are especially encouraged to participate, the report said.

Governments must also make sure they protect the identities of the tipsters to prevent “revenge attacks,” and will punish those who slander others with false reports or provide false information to get the rewards, Xinhua added.

Authorities have shown less enthusiasm for crowdsourced corruption accusations, banning sites such as iBribery.com earlier this year. Concerned citizens pointing out the location of new McDonald’s restaurants will not be eligible for rewards.

This week saw one suspended death sentence and several long prison terms passed by a Henan court on a group illegally selling clenbuterol to pig farmers.

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Post tags: death sentence, food additive, food safety, tainted food
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Xie Baokang, assistant to the Times’ editor, told Agence France-Presse that the investigative department had been “dismantled.” Reporters from the team, including the veteran journalist Wang Keqin, have been moved to different departments, Xie told AFP.

The reasons for the move are not clear, but the lack of transparency surrounding the restructuring is characteristic of the behind-the-scenes political pressure that governs China’s media. Journalists are often fined, dismissed, or demoted in retaliation for outspoken reporting and warned not to publicize the penalty, according to CPJ research.

“This apparent crackdown of the China Economic Times’ investigative section is a loss for China,” said Bob Dietz, CPJ Asia program coordinator. “The shutdown carries the hallmarks of a political measure to curb a leading news outlet’s reporting that found disfavor within the government.”

From Jonathan Watts at The Guardian:

Contacted by phone, Wang said he was unable to comment. “Sorry, I have to hang up,” he said ….

“I had problems with black society [gangs], and problems with red society [officials],” Wang said in a Guardian interview last year. “I heard there was a special investigation team, [with the target of] sending me to prison.” He said his life had been threatened and he had been beaten up on several occasions.

Until now, however, it was assumed that his position was safe because he was protected by China’s former premier Zhu Rongji. There is little indication of what may have sparked a bout of pressure from the authorities. At midnight and from 5am to 9am, Wang posted a series of online comments calling for freedom and condemning the corruption of officials.

“Thanks for your support … Even if we can only change society a little, that is still progress,” he wrote in one. “Respect everyone’s freedom in order to achieve true freedom,” he noted in another. “Who but a corrupt man would want to become a governor?” read another.

At Economics Observer [zh], journalism professor Zhan Jiang expressed optimism for Wang’s prospects and those of Chinese investigative journalism in general. China Media Project translates:

As I wrote on my microblog, the breakup of Wang Keqin’s investigative team is not something intended by the high-level leadership. It should be understood as the intention of a handful of ignorant and incompetent people at the top of the newspaper. High-level leaders have voiced approval of the work Wang Keqin has done in recent years to uphold the public interest. They have at the very least not singled him out for trouble. Wang Keqin has worked as an investigative reporter in Beijing for more than 10 years now, and from his seminal work on taxi cartels in Beijing to today he has never been targeted with a libel suit, and the factual nature of his reporting has never been questioned.

Reporters have called to ask me about the state of investigative reporting in China and the predicament it faces. I respond that we should avoid this word “predicament.” And for this reason, I encourage against reading too much into this latest development, understanding it as necessarily a reflection of the worsening state of investigative reporting, or a sign that forces outside the paper have agitated against Wang Keqin. This should not in fact be the case. We should recognize that we’ve lately seen an upsurge in investigative reporting in many media, in financial media and commercial newspapers, and even at China Central Television, including such recent cases as tainted pork in China, and just this month revelations of counterfeit products by DaVinci furniture ….

When friends say that being a journalist is a dangerous road, I respond that, given the chance, I will still choose to be a journalist in the next life. Because Wang Keqin and others like him have made China a more transparent place, and they have transformed the values of our people. In a significant sense, they have taken us from a culture of propaganda and exultation (歌颂型文化) to a culture of criticism (批判性文化). Therefore, I suspect that the changes Wang Keqin is now experiencing might bring him an opportunity for fairer pay and greater comfort. If that’s the case, then I suppose we have Chairman Hang to thank.

Only a week ago, Wang himself wrote [zh] that, while the fortunes of investigative journalism have followed “the wave-like pattern of the ‘camel’s hump’”, the trends are generally positive. From China Media Project:

… [From] the standpoint of professionalism, the first true investigative reports in China perhaps have a history of just a decade. I believe we can date them back to the launch of Caijing magazine [by Hu Shuli (胡舒立)] in 1998. Along with the China Central Television program News Probe, which was launched around the same time and also exposed deeper stories, Caijing defined investigative reporting on the basis of “defending the public interest” (捍卫公众利益), “exposing the truth” (揭发黑幕), and “independent investigation by reporters” (记者独立调查), these three core characteristics, choosing its topics on this basis. News Probe in particular at the time defined the exposure of hidden truths (揭发黑幕) as a necessary component. This was the most basic expectation [of the program] ….

Making a broader observation, strictly-defined Chinese investigative reporting has shown the following trends over its history of just over ten years: 1. more and more reporters have been engaged in the writing of exposes (揭黑报道); 2. more and more media have been engaged in the publishing of exposes; 3. more and more good-quality reports and regular columns [on investigative reporting] have appeared in China; 4. investigative reports in China are showing a higher and higher degree of professionalism; 5. investigative reporters are receiving increasing attention and respect by general society.

See also past coverage of Wang Keqin on CDT.

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2011. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Caijing, CCTV, Committee to Protect Journalists, counterfeit goods, Hu Shuli, investigative journalism, journalists in china, newspapers, pork, tainted food, Wang Keqin, Zhu Rongji
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Ignorance is being blamed for Hainan farmers’ use of the pesticide on a food crop. But local agriculture officials were reportedly angry over public disclosures by agriculture authorities in Wuhan over the tainted cowpeas from Hainan in the media, which caused some journalists to point out that no chances should be taken on the safety of the food supply.

China’s Ministry of Agriculture issued a warning about the contaminated cowpeas after finding contamination on test samples from several areas in Hainan. It took action by issuing a three-month ban on the import of cowpeas from any region.

In the meantime, agricultural authorities in Hainan have asked each region to strengthen its oversight of the use of pesticides by farmers to make sure they are not using banned substances.

© cschultz for China Digital Times (CDT), 2010. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: food safety, tainted food
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“The enterprises offered to shoulder the compensation liability. By doing so, they hope to earn understanding and forgiveness of the families of the sickened children” the [Dairy Industry Association] said.

As of November, 861 babies still remain in hospital.

These dairy producers have also established a medical fund to assist the victims with future health problems.  To date, Chinese courts have still not allowed private law suits to be filed against the milk producers.

In related news, Sanlu has been declared bankrupt, and the trials of six men accused of producing melamine began Friday.  Sanlu’s Chairwoman Tian Wenhua’s trial will begin next week.  For more information on the Sanlu Milk Scandal, see CDT’s past posts.

© cschultz for China Digital Times (CDT), 2008. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: milk contamination, tainted food
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For all the outrage about Chinese melamine, what American consumers and government agencies have studiously failed to scrutinize is how much melamine has pervaded our own food system. In casting stones, we’ve forgotten that our own house has more than its share of exposed glass.

To be sure, in China some food manufacturers deliberately added melamine to products to increase profits. Makers of baby formula, for example, watered down their product, lowering the amount of protein and nutrients, then added melamine, which is cheap and fools tests measuring protein levels.

But melamine is also integral to the material life of any industrialized society. It’s a common ingredient in cleaning products, waterproof plywood, plastic compounds, cement, ink and fire-retardant paint. Chemical plants throughout the United States produce millions of pounds of melamine a year.

Given the pervasiveness of melamine, it’s always possible that trace elements will end up in food.

© Japhet Weeks for China Digital Times (CDT), 2008. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: health, melamine, tainted food, U.S. food supply
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The newest development in the pet food scandal is that the US Senate plans to hold new hearings on how the FDA is handling the issue. Moreover, 20 other kinds of food have been slated for recall, bringing th total number of recalled pet products to 100, or 1% of the total market.

The FDA is treading very carefully in its investigation to determine the nature of the toxic chemicals and their sources. Unfortunately, the probe is not yet over and already China has become the scapegoat. Preliminary examinations found that the suspect foods were contaminated with melamine, which originated in China. As China is a major source of production materials for pet foods, some hostile US media immediately blamed China, stirring up fear that the country is exporting toxic foods to the US. One Fox TV news anchor claimed that “China is exporting rat poison-contaminated pet foods into the US,” and called for Chinese exporters to be punished.

© Gao Fei for China Digital Times (CDT), 2008. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: media bias, melamine, pet food, tainted exports, tainted food
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As the world frets about risky dog food, dumplings and other consumables from China, the Canadian government has been helping the Chinese try to better regulate their vast and troubled food industry, a federal official confirmed yesterday.

Canadian experts have helped draft new food-safety laws touted recently by China, tutored scores of Chinese food-safety authorities and even developed the first training manual for meat inspectors in a country whose livestock output dwarfs that of Canada.

The contract for the latest project, another round of risk-management training at a University of Ottawa institute, was tentatively issued this month. It is all part of a little-known, $20-million aid program run by Agriculture Canada.

With one tainted-food crisis after another hitting China lately, the project launched in 2003 suddenly became an urgent priority for the Asian giant during recent months.

© Morgan Figuers for China Digital Times (CDT), 2008. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Canada, food safety, tainted food
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When 10 people in Japan became ill after eating pesticide-tainted gyoza dumplings made in China, the resulting furore among the Japanese public demonstrated how fragile relations were between the two countries.

Even an attempt by both countries’ authorities to calm the situation through a joint investigation, which subsequently reached a stalemate, could not prevent the gyoza story from taking on a life of its own. Under public pressure, Japanese supermarkets, restaurants and school cafeterias withdrew Chinese produce. Imports of food from China, which account for 17 per cent of Japan’s external food purchases, fell by 20-30 per cent in the ensuing months.

© Kate Zhao for China Digital Times (CDT), 2008. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: food safety, Japan relations, poisoned dumplings, tainted food
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A total of 258 people died from food poisoning last year, up a little under 32 percent on 2006, the ministry-published Health News said.

There were also 11 cases in which more than 100 people fell ill from food poisoning, but a fall of just over a quarter in total incidents, it added.

In all, 13,280 people fell sick, the report said.

While providing no explanation for the figures, it said that most cases happened in the third quarter of the year.

© Marnette Federis for China Digital Times (CDT), 2008. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: food safety, tainted food
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