Last week's turn of events showed that Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Minister Seiichi Ota and Toshiro Shirasu, the Japanese ministry's top bureaucrat, finally came to realize how heavy their responsibility has been in allowing public distrust regarding food safety to spread so widely.

Ota and Shirasu, administrative vice-agriculture, forestry and fisheries minister, resigned last Friday to take responsibility for the scandal in which imported rice contaminated with pesticide and mold was illicitly resold for purposes other than industrial use. Shirasu was effectively sacked from his post.

It is only natural that the ministry's two top officials were replaced, but these personnel changes alone will not be enough to change the organizational climate in the ministry, which has induced one scandal after another. A sweeping structural reform should be carried out to resuscitate the ministry.

Against the backdrop of widespread distribution of tainted rice is the ministry's industry-friendly stance, exemplified by its aggressive selling of contaminated rice to companies and its overlooking of the illicit sale of such rice as food by conducting inadequate inspections.

The ministry badly mishandled the situation after the illicit distribution of tainted rice came to light earlier this month.

The ministry's section chief in charge of selling tainted imported rice refused to disclose the names of companies that bought the rice, saying the ministry "does not have the authority to do so".

At the instruction of the prime minister's office, the ministry revealed the list of those companies, but the list contained many errors, such as the inclusion of companies that have not dealt in tainted rice.

The ministry's Food Safety and Consumer Affairs Bureau initially was excluded from the ministry's response to the scandal because "no health damage" was reported. It took a whole week after the ministry revealed the illicit distribution for it to enlist all its bureaus to deal with this mounting problem.

Ota and Shirasu, both of whom were supposed to display leadership in dealing with the scandal, made comments that exposed the ministry's irresponsibility. "I'm not overly fazed by the scandal," Ota, said, while Shirasu opined, "I don't think (we were) directly responsible for the scandal."

The ministry has repeatedly mishandled food safety issues. For example, it made light of information on bovine spongiform encephalopathy BSE from the European Union, and, as a result, it allowed the infiltration of BSE into Japan.

Based on lessons learned from such errors, the Food Safety Commission of the Cabinet Office and the ministry's Food Safety and Consumer Affairs Bureau were established five years ago, tasked with revamping the administration of food safety so policies would be implemented from the viewpoints of consumers.

But none of these lessons were heeded.

In response to the scandal, the ministry has mapped out a package of measures designed to prevent the recurrence of such incidents. According to its plans, rice inspection and sales will be handled by different sections of the ministry, and a new system will be put in place to make country-of-origin labeling mandatory for tainted rice.

Of course, these measures are not enough. A thorough rethink is required if the government wants to change the organizational nature of the ministry.

For example, the ministry would be well advised to recruit an outsider to assume the key oversight function at its secretariat and take other steps to beef up its supervisory functions.

Last week, the Cabinet Office established a panel of experts who will identify problems in the ministry's handling of tainted rice and supervision of companies buying such rice. Measures to prevent problems from rising will also be studied by the panel.

We hope the panel will work out specific reform measures that also go as far as rectifying the structural problems of the ministry.

The Yomiuri Shimbun/Asia News Network

(China Daily September 25,2008)