摘要
This article investigates the sources of vegetables consumed by farmers, their perception of pesticide-related food safety risks and the behaviors they engage in to protect themselves, and explores the implications for the social co-governance（shehui gongzhi） of food safety emphasized by China’s recent Food Safety Law. The research site is a county in Yunnan Province where vegetable growing is the major source of income and livelihood for local farmers. We surveyed 417 farmers and collected 776 vegetable samples from 377 surveyed farmer households and tested them for organophosphate and carbamate pesticide residues using PR-12 N Rapid Detection Instrument for Pesticide Residues. The results showed that farmers know about the risks to food safety caused by pesticides used in vegetable growing and they purposely avoid these risks by mainly consuming vegetables planted in home gardens or private plots that use little or no pesticides. Vegetable samples from these private plots had the lowest positive rate of pesticide residues（6.10%）, compared with vegetable samples from commercial farmland（13.73%） and markets（12.66%）, and the difference was statistically significant（X2=9.69,0.005〈P〈0.010）. This implies that the efforts of farmers to protect themselves from pesticide-related food safety risks do have some effect; however, the effect is limited due to the environmental pollution caused by the massive use of pesticides in commercial vegetable growing. Furthermore, this self-protective behavior may have a negative impact on the social co-governance of food safety set out in the new Food Safety Law.
本文调查了云南省某蔬菜种植大县417户蔬菜种植农户自家食用的蔬菜来源、收集了其中377户农户家中的776份用于自食的蔬菜样本并采用PR-12N快速农药检测仪定性检测了其中的有机磷类和氨基甲酸酯类农药的残留情况,以研究农户对农药导致的食品安全风险的认知和自我保护行为。研究结果表明,农户们知道在蔬菜种植过程中使用农药带来的食品安全风险并且通过主要食用自家自留地中专门种植的不使用农药或者很少使用农药的蔬菜来规避这一风险。实验室检测结果表明,来自农户自留地的蔬菜样本其农药残留阳性率(6.10%)低于来自大田(13.73%)和购买于市场的蔬菜样本(12.66%),后两种来源的蔬菜样本农药残留阳性率几乎是自留地蔬菜样本阳性率的两倍而且差异具有统计学意义(X2=9.69,0.005<P<0.010)。提示农户的这种自我保护行为在减少农药相关的食品安全风险方面有一定效果,然而,由于在商业性蔬菜种植中大量使用农药所导致的环境污染,这种自我保护行为的效果是有限的。此外,农户的这种自我保护行为可能对新颁布的食品安全法提出的食品安全社会共治产生消极影响。
基金
International Development Research Centre(IDRC,106556-004)
FORHEAD with funding from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund(RBF)
