Trends, transferring, and sources of aquatic products Risks in China: Evidence from the sampling inspections by national and provincial CFDA

Abstract

This paper maps the risks of aquatic products in different seasons, categorizes risk items, explores the transferring of risk items along the supply chain, and identifies actual risk sources of aquatic products in China, based on the data of regular sampling inspections for aquatic products conducted by national and provincial CFDA. Both descriptive analysis and crossing matrix analysis are used. Some explicit results are derived from the analyses. First, the quality and safety of aquatic products in China exhibit stable improving. Second, economically motivated adulterations by people s behaviors such as the use of drugs and chemical additives are the most important causes of risks for aquatic products. Third, risks at upstream parts transfer along the supply chain to the downstream. Fourth, the two riskiest stages causing food safety problem are manufacture and farming. Specifically, most risks for fresh aquatic products lie in farming, while those for processed products are at manufacture. However, the assignment of regulation strength and resources does not match with the distribution of risks. Stronger regulations such as the adoption of origin certificate at farms and more sampling inspections at manufacture are necessary to control for the risks of aquatic products. Acknowledgement : The work was supported by the the project Systemic Risk Management of Food Supply Chains in China , National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 71773109, 71573227, 71633002); and the Project of Humanities and Social Science of the Ministry of Education in China (grant number 14YJC790089); Zhejiang Philosophy and Social Science (Grant No. 17NDJC193YB).