Sea cucumber farms inspected for pesticides

Authorities crack down on banned substances following media report

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs launched a nationwide campaign on Monday to crack down on the illegal use of pesticides and other banned drugs in raising sea cucumbers after some aquaculture farms in East China were recently found to have used dichlorvos, a highly toxic insecticide.

The ministry stressed that only approved veterinary drugs and feed can be dispersed at aquaculture farms, according to a notice published on its website.

Concerted efforts will be devoted to conducting thorough inspections at farms rearing sea cucumbers－which are sought after in China for their nutritional and medicinal value－and targeting the illegal use of pesticides, such as dichlorvos and weed killers, as well as banned or suspended drugs, the ministry said.

These products help eliminate sea pests and prevent diseases due to their antibiotic or antibacterial effects, but their residues in food products pose health threats to consumers, and any untreated water threatens to pollute the environment.

The ministry added that veterinary drug producers who fail to obtain certificates or sell raw ingredients or substandard or fake products will be investigated.

The monitoring of harmful residues in sea cucumbers, as well as spot checks on the conditions of water, sediment and stored products, will be intensified, it said, adding that faulty products will be sealed and destroyed and farms involved must undergo purification treatment.

The rollout of the campaign, which will run through the end of August, was prompted after a media report on Thursday evening showed that in Jimo, Shandong province－a major producer of sea cucumbers in China－bottles of dichlorvos were dumped into ponds to get rid of crabs and other fish that crowd the water, which are less tolerant of the poisonous agent than sea cucumbers.

Local businesses were also found to have been selling ingredients of other banned antibiotic drugs, soaking sea cucumbers in malt mixtures to spike their weights and labeling products cultivated in South China as coming from northern areas, which are more prized in the market.

The ministry immediately sent a working group to Shandong to guide local authorities investigating these issues and to conduct inspections on farms featured in the report.

On Saturday, three people involved in these cases received administrative punishment, and an investigation into five local officials was launched.

In addition, none of the 66 batches sampled was found to contain traces of dichlorvos, and 1,257 sea cucumber breeders across Shandong have been inspected as of Saturday afternoon, the ministry said.

In the notice released on Monday, the ministry also urged local authorities to draw lessons from these cases and identify loopholes in their supervision systems over sea cucumber cultivation.

Producers and farmers will be guided to set up files recording the production, drug application and selling of sea cucumbers, and regular patrols and awareness programs to promote regulations will be ramped up.