China products

Several people in Japan were sickened by eating China-made gyouza (chaoz, a sort of dumpling) contaminated with methamidphos, an organophosphate insecticide. To date, many problems for China products, such as pet foods contaminated with melamine, toxic toothpaste with diethyleneglycol, and lead poisoned toys, have been reported in the USA. Perhaps it was very fortunate to have no such incident so far in Japan. Several companies make an appeal that their products are "safe China free".
When Mari heard about it on the news, she told me that she decided never to buy any China food. But the next day she bought some frozen foods, which contain many china products. Of course, it may be impossible to exclude all China products from our daily foods. With advance of globalization, numerous foods and products has been imported from China into Japan. The self-sufficiency ratio of food in Japan is less than 40% now.
The food companies are responsible for producing safety food than reducing the production cost. For the globalization of food, it is necessary to introduce the quality control engineering in Japan to the producers. At the same time, it should be given more importance on self-sufficient agriculture in Japan with localized food systems. To be a wise-consumer, one needs to be careful not only about the price but also the quality of food.
We have abundant resources of science, engineering, and agriculture in Japan. Japan desires to establish a nation based on the science and technology, although most scientists and engineers are working under poor conditions. I would be proud of our science and technology and hope the quality of products will be maintained in Japan.