Of Cabbages and Communism

[barondave]

This appeared in today's News of the Weird, and I tracked down the original story...

China vegetables to get Olympic identity codes

The world's most populous country will now begin tracking its vegetables.

In an attempt to ensure food safety during the 2008 Olympics, Beijing is to give every cabbage, carrot and pea pod its own identity number and file, the Beijing News reported on Wednesday.

If there is a "safety incident" the vegetable's file can be immediately checked and its origins traced, the newspaper said, in a report accompanied by graphics showing personnel at computers tracking each vegetable's path from farm to plate.

"Safety incidents" was a likely reference to pesticide or pollutants in the soil. The environment group Greenpeace has found banned pesticides and excessive levels of other chemicals in vegetables supplied from China.

"After going through inspections at the distribution centre, standard and qualified vegetables can enter Olympic kitchens," the Beijing News report said.

The city will need more than 5,000 tonnes of vegetables during the Olympics, mostly from Beijing and the northern Chinese provinces of Hebei and Shandong.

The report made no mention of fruit.

Aside: I couldn't find the story on Beijing News, but to be fair, the English part of the site was skimpy.

Comments

[bchbum-98.livejournal.com]

Is it really to ensure safety, or to ensure that non-Chinese don't get food laced with banned substances, which could be detected, embarrassing the host nation?

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

Or to make sure everything gets taxed?

B

[barondave.livejournal.com]

I'm wondering how they'll do it. A small sticker? An edible ink stamp? An RFID in every peapod? Will there be bar code readers over every wok and salad bar?

Maybe they'll outsource the job to India.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

They have to mean each individual package. There's simply no other way.

B

[barondave.livejournal.com]

I daresay you're probably right, though it's still a huge undertaking, but that's not what the Reuters story says. I was hoping to find clarification somewhere, but I couldn't track down the original announcement. Presumably, it's in Chinese.