China has vowed to wipe out the "dark" trade of adding the chemical melamine to animal feed, with at least one industry expert claiming fake feed is an established trade in parts of the country's rural heartlands.
The Ministry of Agriculture announced the drive against illegal melamine use in feed following weeks of product recalls and damaging publicity after the chemical was found at above mandated levels in mainland-produced eggs sold in China, Hong Kong and abroad. Public alarm has forced egg prices to plummet in local markets. Breeders have slaughtered many thousands of now unprofitable chickens.
The egg scare has come on the heels of an even-wider scandal over milk adulterated with the industrial chemical to fool quality checks. Four children have died and many thousands been hospitalised from its use in baby milk formula.
There have been no reports of illness from the relatively low levels detected in eggs.
At a meeting on Saturday, Chinese agricultural officials defended themselves against accusations of inaction over melamine but also vowed to stamp out its illicit use in the food sector.
"Thoroughly trace the sources of melamine, wipe out melamine sales networks and resolutely crush the dark dens of making and selling animal feed containing it," the meeting ordered, according to a report on the Ministry website (www.agri.gov.cn).
"Strike hard against those who illegally add melamine to animal feed," the meeting urged. "There can be no appeasement or concessions," stated the report, which appeared late on Saturday.
The agricultural officials sought to defend themselves against claims that they ignored the problem. But one animal feed expert told a Chinese newspaper that adding melamine or its even cheaper scrap was an established trade in some areas. Melamine is a compound legally used in making plastic and fertilisers, but with its high nitrogen levels it can also be added to food to cheat nutrition tests measuring protein, which is also high in nitrogen.
Last year, Chinese-made pet food ingredients adulterated with the chemical led to deaths of cats and dogs in the United States, and China's Ministry of Agriculture announced rules explicitly banning it in animal feed. Since the US pet food problem, Chinese inspectors have checked 250,400 animal feed businesses and farms, and found melamine in 2.4 percent of animal feed and feed ingredients tested, the Ministry's report of the meeting said.
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But Fang Shijun, an animal feed expert at Shanghai's eFeedLink consultancy company, told the China Business Journal that adding melamine and other quality inspection-fooling ingredients to feed was an established trade in parts of the country's rural east and north.
"Here there are specialist fakers who engage in faking fish, meat and bone meal as well as corn protein, and they've formed business chains," Fang told the Chinese-language paper.
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