A Tale of Eight Pesticides: Risk Regulation and Public Health in China

Francis SNYDER; Lili NI

doi:10.1017/err.2017.38

A Tale of Eight Pesticides: Risk Regulation and Public Health in China

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 October 2017

Francis SNYDER and

Lili NI

Article contents

Abstract
INTRODUCTION
EIGHT PESTICIDES
VALUE CHAINS, AGRICULTURAL USE AND (BRIEFLY) RESIDUES
RISK REGULATION
ANALYSIS
POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS
CONCLUSION
Footnotes

Rights & Permissions

Abstract

This article focuses on the use and regulation of eight toxic pesticides in agricultural production in China. The pesticides are bifenthrin, chlorpyrifus, diazinon, dimethoate, methidathion, omethoate, phosmet and phosphamidon. These pesticides pose widely recognised public health risks in China. So far as we know, the article is the first article in English ever to treat these pesticides systematically from the standpoint of the regulation of risks to human beings and to the environment. Adopting perspectives from public health, economic sociology and law, the article considers the principal characteristics of these pesticides, the main health risks associated with their use in agricultural production and how these pesticides in agricultural production are currently regulated in Chinese law. It identifies a series of policy implications and makes specific policy recommendations concerning risk regulation of these eight pesticides.

Information

Type: Articles
Information: European Journal of Risk Regulation , Volume 8 , Issue 3 , September 2017, pp. 469 - 505
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/err.2017.38 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: © Cambridge University Press

I INTRODUCTIONFootnote ¹

Pesticides have helped to increase agricultural production throughout the world by protecting plants from harmful pests. However, ever since Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring Footnote ² was published in 1962, it has been increasingly recognised that many pesticides may cause serious risks to public health. In addition to domestic consequences, agricultural use of pesticides and the presence of pesticide residues in food also raise significant issues in international trade. Nevertheless, not all pesticides are equal. Pesticides differ in the risks which they pose to plants, insects, animals including human beings, and the natural environment; hence they vary in the balance, if any, to be established between the benefits and the disadvantages of their use. Such “weighing and balancing”, in different forms and according to different logics, is common to the scientific assessment of the risks of pesticides and to the legal regulation of pesticides and pesticide residues domestically and in international trade.

All countries use pesticides, but farmers in China use a particularly high level of agrochemicals.Footnote ³ In 2012, according to the World Bank, “China used 647.6 kilograms (1,427 pounds) of fertilizer per hectare of arable land …, compared with 131 kilograms (289 pounds) in the United States and 124.3 kilograms (274 pounds) in Spain”.Footnote ⁴ The use of pesticides in Chinese agriculture, despite substantial regional variation,Footnote ⁵ accounts for one-third of the world total, proportionately more than either China’s proportion of world population (18.72)Footnote ⁶ or of world arable land (10–11 per cent)Footnote ⁷ might lead one to expect.Footnote ⁸

Recently a group of distinguished Chinese scientists identified eight pesticides for special attention, focusing specifically on risk assessment of pesticide residues.Footnote ⁹ The eight pesticides are (in alphabetical order) bifenthrin, chlorpyrifus, diazinon, dimethoate, methidathion, omethoate, phosmet and phosphamidon. They fall into two groups: organophosphates and pyrethroids. Organophosphates comprise a range of pesticides which act on the enzyme acetylcholinesterase in insects, animals or humans; this enzyme is essential to nerve function, in both insects and animals, including human beings.Footnote ¹⁰ Here they include chlorpyrifos, diazinon, dimethoate, methidathion, omethoate, phosmet, and phosphamidon. Pyrethroids, which usually are less toxic, are a synthetic version of natural pyrethrins extracted from the flowers of pyrethrums (Chrystanethmum cinerarifolium).Footnote ¹¹ Here they include only one pesticide: bifenthrin.

In this article we recount a tale of eight pesticides and the law, focusing on China. We focus on the use of these eight pesticides in agricultural production, not on their residues in the food we consume. We adopt a broad legal perspective, considering norms, institutions and legal processes. We also deploy perspectives from public health and economic sociology. The first perspective helps us to understand the risks posed by the active chemical ingredient in each pesticide and how international and national public health bodies have classified these risks. The second perspective enables us to trace the value chain or market structure for the manufacture, supply and use of each pesticide and on this basis to make economically informed, realistic policy recommendations. We consider the main characteristics of these pesticides, their use in agricultural production and how the uses of these pesticides in agricultural production are currently regulated in Chinese law. Our purpose is to highlight the health risks associated with these pesticides, to analyse the regulation of these risks and to identify specific policy implications.

The article is divided into three main sections. The first main section introduces the eight pesticides. The second main section discusses the use of these and similar pesticides in agricultural production in China. A third main section discusses the current Chinese normative framework for regulating the risks potentially posed by these pesticides. This broad-based approach, drawing on science, economics and law, will provide a foundation for conclusions and recommendations concerning risk regulation of the entire value chain of these pesticides.

II EIGHT PESTICIDES

1 Introduction

This section of the article provides general information about each of the eight pesticides. After sketching briefly how the risks of the use of pesticides in agricultural production are assessed and classified, we consider first the pesticides in the organophosphate group and then the sole pesticide in the pyrethroid group. The pesticides in each group are discussed in alphabetical order. We try to present the data so far as possible in ordinary language, explaining technical terms where necessary, so that the analysis is easily comprehensible.

2 Risk assessment of agricultural pesticides

The active ingredient of each pesticide can be assessed in terms of its toxicity, including for mammals. The risks posed by pesticides are usually determined by experiments on laboratory animals, generally mice or rats, whose metabolism is similar to that of human beings. For each pesticide, a No Observed Effect Level (NOEL) is assessed in terms of mg of pesticides per kg of body weight per day. MacBean’s classic compendium defines NOEL as “the highest dose in an animal toxicology study at which no biologically significant increase in frequency or severity of an effect is observed”.Footnote ¹² A 100-fold uncertainty factor is applied to extrapolate the NOEL for human beings: it includes a 10-fold inter-species uncertainty factor to take account of the fact that humans may be more sensitive than animals, and a 10-fold intra-species uncertainty factor to take account of the fact that some human beings are more sensitive than others; an additional 10-fold uncertainty factor may be added, for example for children. This allows calculation of an oral reference dose (RfD), which is “an estimate, with uncertainty spanning perhaps an order of magnitude, of a daily oral exposure to the human population (including sensitive subgroups) that is likely to be without an appreciable risk of deleterious effects during a lifetime”.Footnote ¹³ This is the amount of oral pesticide intake which does not produce any observable effects. It does not take account of other types of contact with the pesticide, or of unobservable effects, or the possible effect of an accumulation of different pesticides.

International, regional and other governmental organisations classify each pesticide according to toxicity.Footnote ¹⁴ The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates the acute toxicity of pesticides according to the following scale: “Ia Extremely hazardous, Ib Highly hazardous, II Moderately hazardous, III Slightly hazardous, U Product unlikely to present acute hazard in normal use, O Not classified … and FM Fumigrants, not classified under WHO”.Footnote ¹⁵ The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) classifies pesticides into four classes, with Class I being the most toxic and Class IV being the least toxic. A signal word for labelling is associated with each class; for example, “Danger” is associated with Class I, “Warning” with Class II and “Caution” with Classes III and IV. The EU classifies pesticides according to a system of nine risk symbols, running from “Corrosive” to “Harmful”, combined with a system of almost 50 associated risk phases.Footnote ¹⁶

Pesticides are also classified by several international non-governmental organisations (NGOs). The most extensive, most prominent and most influential NGO in the field is the Pesticide Action Network (PAN), established in 1982 and now comprising more than 600 organisations in more than 90 countries.Footnote ¹⁷ The PAN Pesticide Database classification of a pesticide as a “Bad Actor Chemical”Footnote ¹⁸ is used to designate “chemicals that are one or more of the following: highly acutely toxic, cholinesterase inhibitor,Footnote ¹⁹ known/probable carcinogen, known groundwater pollutant or known reproductive or developmental toxicant[whether it is mutagenic,Footnote ²⁰ genotoxic,Footnote ²¹ or teratogenicFootnote ²² ] …. Because there are no authoritative lists of Endocrine Disrupting (ED) chemicals,Footnote ²³ EDs are not yet considered PAN Bad Actor chemicals”.Footnote ²⁴

3 Organophosphates

a. Chlorpyrifos

Chlorpyrifos (CAS Registry Number 2921-88-2Footnote ²⁵ ) is an organophosphate insecticide that was introduced by Dow Chemical Company in 1965.Footnote ²⁶ As of 2012, it was produced by numerous manufacturers.Footnote ²⁷ Chlorpyrifos is an active ingredient in numerous products.Footnote ²⁸ Today Alibaba lists 409 suppliers of chlorpyrifos in China.Footnote ²⁹

A risk assessment for chlorpyrifos results: “Acute oral NOEL for humans 1.0 mg/kg b.w. daily; acute dermal NOEL for humans 5.0 mg/kg b.w. daily”. It is non-teratogenic, meaning that it does not cause birth defects.Footnote ³⁰ It has also been assessed as “Not genotoxic in range of in vitro and in vivo studies”.Footnote ³¹

WHO classifies chlorpyrifos as moderately hazardous.Footnote ³² The EPA classifies chlorpyrifos formulation in Class II, “Warning”,Footnote ³³ but for the time being it is registered by the US EPA;Footnote ³⁴ EPA registration means that currently the pesticide can be sold or distributed in the United States.Footnote ³⁵ However, chlorpyrifos has become increasingly controversial to the point that the EPA is currently deciding whether or not to ban it.Footnote ³⁶ The EU previously classified chlorpyrifos as toxic, toxic in contact with skin, concentration dependent: very toxic to aquatic to aquatic organisms and may cause long-term effects to aquatic environment, and toxic to bees.Footnote ³⁷ Current legislation maintains this classification but in different terms, according to which chlorpyrifos is classified as “Acute Tox. 3 *, Aquatic Acute 1, Aquatic Chronic 1”.Footnote ³⁸ According to the PAN Pesticide Database, chlorpyrifos is not on the list of approved biocidal active substances in the EU under Directive 98/8/EC or Regulation (EU) No 528/2012.Footnote ³⁹

The PAN Pesticide Database classifies chlorpyrifos as a “Bad Actor Chemical”.Footnote ⁴⁰ The PAN Pesticide Database classifies chlorpyrifos as highly toxic for honeybees.Footnote ⁴¹ With regard to human beings, it considers chlorpyrifos to be of moderately acute toxicity,Footnote ⁴² though not a likely carcinogen.Footnote ⁴³ However, it classifies chlorpyrifos as a highly toxic cholinesterase inhibitorFootnote ⁴⁴ and also as a suspected endocrine disruptor.Footnote ⁴⁵

b. Diazinon

Diazinon (CAS Reference Number 333-41-5), also called dimpylate,Footnote ⁴⁶ is an organophosphate insecticide and acaricide. It was introduced in 1953 by JR Geigy SA (now Syngenta AG).Footnote ⁴⁷ Diazinon was produced as of 2012 by numerous manufacturersFootnote ⁴⁸ and sold under numerous product names.Footnote ⁴⁹ Currently the Alibaba website lists 92 suppliers of diazinon in China.Footnote ⁵⁰

For plants, diazinon is “[n]on-phytotoxic when used as directed. Russeting may occur on green and yellow apple varieties”.Footnote ⁵¹ As to mammalian toxicology, diazinon is classified by WHO as moderately hazardous; by EPA (formulation) as Class II Warning or Class III Caution, and by the EU as Harmful [FS: lowest category of risk], harmful if swallowed, dangerous for the environment, “very toxic to aquatic organisms, may cause long-term adverse effects in the aquatic environment”.Footnote ⁵² It is highly toxic to bees.Footnote ⁵³

PAN classifies diazinon as a Bad Actor Chemical.Footnote ⁵⁴ The pure chemical ingredient is of moderately acute toxicity; this does not necessarily reflect the toxicity of individual products.Footnote ⁵⁵ According to the PAN Pesticide Database, diazion is not a likely carcinogen,Footnote ⁵⁶ but recently the International Agency for Research on Cancer recently concluded to the contrary: that diazinon was a probable carcinogen, linked to non-Hodgkin lymphoma, leukemia and lung cancer.Footnote ⁵⁷ It is a highly toxic cholinesterase inhibitorFootnote ⁵⁸ and is on the Extoxnet list.Footnote ⁵⁹ It is a potential ground water contaminant,Footnote ⁶⁰ a highly toxic developmental or reproductive toxinFootnote ⁶¹ and a suspected endocrine disruptor.Footnote ⁶²

c. Dimethoate

Dimethoate (CAS Reference Number 60-51-5), called fosfamid in Russia,Footnote ⁶³ is an organophosphate insecticide and acaricide. According to MacBean, it was “[i]ntroduced by American Cyanamid Co (who sold rights to Wilbur-Ellis Co), by BASF AG and Boehfinger Sohn (both now BASF SE), and by Montecatini SpA (now Isagro SpA)”.Footnote ⁶⁴ As of 2012 it was manufactured by a large number of companies in China and elsewhereFootnote ⁶⁵ as sold under various product names.Footnote ⁶⁶ Alibaba currently lists 96 suppliers in China.Footnote ⁶⁷

Dimethoate has been described as “Non-phytotoxic when used as directed, except to some varieties of lemon, peach, fig, olive, walnut, hop, tomatoes, bean, cotton and pine. Russetting is possible with Red Delicious and Golden Delicious apples, and with some ornamentals. Phytotoxicity is dependent on crop variety and climate”.Footnote ⁶⁸

In terms of mammalian toxicology, MacBean reports a NOEL (39 d) for human volunteers at 0.2 mg/kg bw daily. WHO classifies dimethoate as moderately hazardous, EPA (formulation) classifies it as moderately hazardous and the EU classifies it as harmful, harmful if in contact with skin or if swallowed, harmful and danger of serious damage to health and if swallowed.Footnote ⁶⁹ Dimethoate is acutely toxic to birds and toxic to bees.Footnote ⁷⁰ However, it “degrades with short half-life in soil, water and plants. When used correctly, exposure of the population through air, food or water is negligible”.Footnote ⁷¹ Dimethoate has a “[l]ow potential of leaching to groundwater because of rapid degradation in soil”.Footnote ⁷²

PAN classifies dimethoate as a Bad Actor Chemical.Footnote ⁷³ According to the PAN Pesticide Database, dimethoate is acutely toxic.Footnote ⁷⁴ It is a possible carcinogenFootnote ⁷⁵ and a highly toxic cholinesterase inhibitor;Footnote ⁷⁶ MacBean and Extoxnet also classify dimethoate as a cholinesterase inhibitor.Footnote ⁷⁷ PAN lists dimethoate as a potential ground water contaminant,Footnote ⁷⁸ a high toxicity developmental or reproductive toxinFootnote ⁷⁹ and a suspected endocrine disruptor.Footnote ⁸⁰ It is on the EU list of endocrine disruptors.Footnote ⁸¹

d. Methidathion

Methidathion (CAS Reference Number 950-37-8Footnote ⁸² ) is an organophosphate insecticide and acaricide. It was introduced by JR Geigy (now Syngenta). As with other pesticides, it was manufactured by several companiesFootnote ⁸³ and sold under various product names.Footnote ⁸⁴ Currently, the website Made-in-China.com lists 18 products from about 12 manufacturers and supplies in China;Footnote ⁸⁵ Alibaba lists a single supplier.Footnote ⁸⁶

Methidathion is designed as a cholinesterase inhibitor.Footnote ⁸⁷ As for the NOEL, “Human volunteers tolerated daily oral doses of up to 0.11 mg/kg for at least 42 d without reaction”.Footnote ⁸⁸ Methidathion is classified by WHO as an Acute Hazard 1b Highly HazardousFootnote ⁸⁹ and by US EPA as Highly ToxicFootnote ⁹⁰ (formulation as highly hazardous/extremely hazardous – Warning, and by the EU as very toxic; harmful and very toxic if swallowed; harmful in contact with skin and dangerous for the environment, “very toxic to aquatic organisms”, “may cause long-term adverse effects in the aquatic environment”.Footnote ⁹¹ It may cause serious harm to birds, bees and earthworms.Footnote ⁹²

PAN classifies methidathion as a Bad Actor ChemicalFootnote ⁹³ with acute toxicity.Footnote ⁹⁴ It is listed by Extoxnet as a cholinesterase inhibitor,Footnote ⁹⁵ by US EPA as a possible carcinogenFootnote ⁹⁶ and by PAN Pesticide Database as a potential groundwater contaminant.Footnote ⁹⁷

e. Omethoate

Omethoate (CAS Reference Number 1113-02-6)Footnote ⁹⁸ is an organophosphate insecticide and acaricide. It was introduced by Bayer AG about 1959, and rights to it were acquired in 2015 by Arysta LifeScience Corp,Footnote ⁹⁹ which in the same year was bought by the American-based specialty chemical products producer Platform Specialty Products.Footnote ¹⁰⁰ When searched for “omethoate in China”, the website Made-in-China.com lists 10 manufacturers and suppliers with 30 different products.Footnote ¹⁰¹

In 2012 omethoate was classified as a cholinesterase inhibitor.Footnote ¹⁰² With regard to mammalian toxicology, MacBean reported no data on humans, but the WHO classified omethoate as highly hazardous, the EPA (formulation) classified it as Extremely Hazardous (Warning) and the EU considered it to be toxic; toxic if swallowed; harmful in contact with skin; very toxic to aquatic organisms.Footnote ¹⁰³ It is toxic to bees.Footnote ¹⁰⁴

PAN classifies omethoate as a PAN Bad Actor ChemicalFootnote ¹⁰⁵ of “Acute Toxicity”,Footnote ¹⁰⁶ based on the pesticide being classified by WHO as either “Extremely hazardous” or “Highly hazardous”.Footnote ¹⁰⁷ According to the PAN Pesticide Database, omethoate is a cholinesterase inhibitor;Footnote ¹⁰⁸ it is on the Extoxnet list.Footnote ¹⁰⁹ It is also a suspected endocrine disruptor (listed on the EU list).Footnote ¹¹⁰

f. Phosmet (Imidan)

Phosmet (CAS Reference Number 732-11-6), called phtalofos/phthalofos in Russia,Footnote ¹¹¹ is an organophosphate insecticide and acaricide. It was “[i]ntroduced by Stauffer Chemical Co ([which] became Zeneca Agrochemicals) and now (as of 2012) was marketed by Gowan Co and others”.Footnote ¹¹² Phosmet, as of 2012, was manufactured mainly by two companies in China but also by other companies, and it was sold under various product names.Footnote ¹¹³ Alibaba provides 21 suppliers for phosmet.Footnote ¹¹⁴

Phosmet is designated as a cholinesterase inhibitor.Footnote ¹¹⁵ It is “[n]ot carcinogenic or teratogenic”.Footnote ¹¹⁶ It is classified by WHO as moderately hazardous, by the US EPA (formulation) as Class II (Warning) and by the EU as harmful; harmful for the skin and if followed: dangerous for the environment; very toxic to aquatic organisms and may cause long-term adverse effects in the aquatic environment (concentration dependent).Footnote ¹¹⁷ The USA EPA considers use of phosmet to present “suggestive evidence of carcinogenicity, but not sufficient to assess human carcinogenic potential.Footnote ¹¹⁸

PAN classifies phosmet as a Bad Actor ChemicalFootnote ¹¹⁹ of moderately acute toxicity.Footnote ¹²⁰ Phosmet is considered to be a highly toxic cholinesterase inhibitor;Footnote ¹²¹ it is on the Extoxnet list.Footnote ¹²² It is a potential ground water contaminant.Footnote ¹²³ Regarding the impact on the environment in general, MacBean described phosmet as follows: “In plants, phosmet is rapidly broken down to non-toxic metabolites … Rapidly broken down in the soil”.Footnote ¹²⁴

g. Phosphamidon

Phosphamidon (CAS Reference Number 13171-21-6)Footnote ¹²⁵ is an organophosphate insecticide and acaricide. First reported in 1956, it was “[i]introduced by Ciba AG ([which] became Novartis Crop Protection AG, who ceased to manufacture or market it)”.Footnote ¹²⁶ As of 2012, MacBean listed several principal manufacturersFootnote ¹²⁷ and also other manufacturers for specific named products.Footnote ¹²⁸ ChemNet lists one supplier for China.Footnote ¹²⁹ Chemical Register, The Online Chemical Buyer’s Guide, lists 14 suppliers in China.Footnote ¹³⁰

Phosphamidon is a cholinesterase inhibitor.Footnote ¹³¹ WHO rates it as Acutely Hazardous 1a.Footnote ¹³² The US EPA gives it an Acute rating: Highly toxicFootnote ¹³³ (formulation) to be labelled I “Danger” and the EU rating is “very toxic”, “very toxic in contact with skin and if swallowed”, “dangerous for the environment”, “possible risk of irreversible effects” very toxic to aquatic organisms”, “May cause long-term effects in the aquatic environment”.Footnote ¹³⁴ Phosphamidon is “highly toxic to crustaceans”, “highly toxic to bees”.Footnote ¹³⁵

PAN classifies phosphamidon as a Bad Actor Chemical,Footnote ¹³⁶ with acute toxicity.Footnote ¹³⁷ PAN considers it to be a possible carcinogenFootnote ¹³⁸ and a highly toxic cholinesterase inhibitor;Footnote ¹³⁹ phosphamidon is also on Extoxnet list.Footnote ¹⁴⁰ Phosphamidon is a potential ground water contaminantFootnote ¹⁴¹ and a suspected endocrine disruptor.Footnote ¹⁴²

4 Pyrethroids

a. Bifenthrin

Bifenthrin (CAS Reference Number 82657-04-3)Footnote ¹⁴³ is a pyrethroid insecticide and acaricide. The only pyrethroid discussed in this article, it was introduced 1984 by FMC Corp.Footnote ¹⁴⁴ For bifenthrin, as of 2012 MacBean listed numerous manufacturersFootnote ¹⁴⁵ and selected products and mixtures by these and other manufacturers.Footnote ¹⁴⁶ Today, Alibaba lists 407 suppliers in China;Footnote ¹⁴⁷ and Made-in-China.com lists 61 bifenthrin manufacturers and suppliers in China.Footnote ¹⁴⁸

The toxicity of bifenthrin is rated by WHO as moderately hazardous and by EPA (formulation) as Class II “Warning”.Footnote ¹⁴⁹ The EU classification is toxic, “harmful if swallowed”, “harmful by inhalation”, “may cause sensitisation on skin contact”, dangerous for the environment, “very toxic to acquatic organisms, may cause long-term adverse effects in the aquatic environment”,Footnote ¹⁵⁰ but ecotoxicology: “Low solubility in water and high affinity for soil contribute to produce little impact in aquatic systems under field conditions”.Footnote ¹⁵¹

PAN classifies bifenthrin as a Bad Actor Chemical.Footnote ¹⁵² This pesticide is classified as being of moderately acute toxicity,Footnote ¹⁵³ a possible carcinogen,Footnote ¹⁵⁴ a high toxicity developmental or reproductive toxinFootnote ¹⁵⁵ and a suspected endocrine disruptor.Footnote ¹⁵⁶ MacBean states that bifenthrin is non-teratogenic in rats and rabbits.Footnote ¹⁵⁷

5 Summary of risks

Taking due account of the risk assessments presented above, Table 1 summarises the effects of these pesticides, so far as we are able to do with available scientific data.

Table 1

Summary of the Effects of the Eight Pesticides

III VALUE CHAINS, AGRICULTURAL USE AND (BRIEFLY) RESIDUES

1 Value chains for pesticides in China

This section discusses the value chains and use of the eight pesticides in China. We do not have specific data on the value chain or market structure for each of the eight pesticides. Consequently, we present both general and specific data.

The number of pesticide manufacturers in the world is very limited. In 2011, six manufacturers accounted for more than 76 per cent of world sales.Footnote ¹⁵⁸ Four Chinese companies figured among the top 20 as of 2014.Footnote ¹⁵⁹ The recently agreed acquisition by ChemChina of the Swiss group Syngenta, the world’s leading pesticide producer,Footnote ¹⁶⁰ will significantly increase Chinese companies’ share of the world pesticide manufacturing market; recently the merger has been approved conditionally by the EU competition authorities.Footnote ¹⁶¹

In addition to the domestic market, in 2012 China exported 402 pesticides, of which 12 accounted for more than US$ 100 million and 19 more accounted for more than US$ 50 million. The former group included chlorpyrifos with US$ 162.86 million, bifenthrin with US$ 54.85 million and another 87 pesticides’ export volume reached more than US$ 10 million. This included dimethoate and diazinon.Footnote ¹⁶²

As of 2004, there were “about 2600 pesticide producers (including those producing public health insecticides) in China, with a production capacity of 850 000 tons (counted in 100 percent) of over 600 varieties, 800 000 tons of formulation”.Footnote ¹⁶³ A 2008 OECD study reported that multinational companies comprised about 25 per cent of the market, with the remainder produced by approximately 2,000 Chinese companies.Footnote ¹⁶⁴ In 2010, there were about 1800 producers. The 12th Five-Year Plan (2010–2015) proposed to reduce the number by 30 per cent by mergers and acquisitions, but it seems that only 18 companies had left the market by 2015.Footnote ¹⁶⁵ The 13th Five-Year Plan (2016–2020) was reported to aim for another 30 per cent reduction by 2020, leaving the leading 20 companies to account for half of total sales. According to the specialist trade publication Agrow, however, “[t]he country’s two state-owned chemical giants, ChemChina and Sinochem, each own stakes in some of the country’s largest pesticide companies, and have as yet been unable to consolidate all of these businesses into one single entity”.Footnote ¹⁶⁶ The current 13th Five-Year Plan simply refers generally to strengthening control of excessive pesticide use and seeking to achieve “zero growth” in the use of pesticides.Footnote ¹⁶⁷

The current number of suppliers in China of each of the eight pesticides, so far as we have been able to calculate, is shown in Table 2.

Table 2

Number of Suppliers of the Eight Pesticides

For this calculation, we conducted a thorough search of Google and then leading Chinese internet service providers, particularly Alibaba,Footnote ¹⁶⁸ based on the search terms “China / [name of pesticide active ingredient, eg chlorpyrifos/ Alibaba / China [active ingredient] manufacturers and suppliers directory / products / [active ingredient] / mainland China / suppliers”. We also compared the results with those provided by professional industrial websites, such as Made-in-China,Footnote ¹⁶⁹ ChemNet,Footnote ¹⁷⁰ Online Chemical Buyer’s Guide Footnote ¹⁷¹ and AgroNews. Footnote ¹⁷² In addition, we consulted “China’s Regulatory News & Database” ChemLinked,Footnote ¹⁷³ as well as UN and OECD publications.Footnote ¹⁷⁴ Given the structure of the Chinese economy, it is likely that many suppliers are limited to specific provinces or areas. Each supplier of a specific pesticide is counted once, so if a single supplier provides all eight pesticides, it would be counted as eight suppliers. This list includes only legal suppliers; for obvious reasons, illegal suppliers do not appear on publicly available lists.

The numbers of wholesalers and retailers are much larger. Moreover, China today has more than 200 million (221,080,000) farmers.Footnote ¹⁷⁵ In 2012 “0.679 billion ton[s of v]egtables are produced by about one hundred million small scale farmers”, and “a total of 39.50 million tons [of] apples are produced by about thirty five million small scale farmers”.Footnote ¹⁷⁶ The complexity and diversity of the pesticides value chains, the decentralised and cellular nature of the Chinese economy,Footnote ¹⁷⁷ the sheer scale of China’s agricultural sector and the large number of small farmers, as the 2008 melamine infant formula crisis demonstrated,Footnote ¹⁷⁸ pose severe problems for social regulation.

2 Pesticides in agricultural production

In this section we review relevant previous research which has been conducted on the use of agrochemicals in Chinese agriculture and its implications for public health. This research covers production and marketing of fruit, vegetables and other products and includes pesticides and pesticide residues. It treats the two general categories of pesticides (organophosphates and pyrethroids) and several specific pesticides, but it is very fragmented and unsystematic. In order to be as accurate as possible in presenting research findings, we refer to this work in chronological order, if possible according to when the research was carried out or otherwise according to the date of publication. We draw on available published research, as indicated in footnotes, but we do not have detailed information for each of the eight pesticides. Consequently we indicate expressly any research which refers to one or more of the eight pesticides.

Regarding the use of pesticides in agricultural production, an American Insect Control Delegation which visited China in 1975 reported that, before 1949, “diseases and insect pests were severe”, despite the use of local biological controls. Significant use of pesticides followed in the 1950s; the most widely used pesticides were DDT and benzene hexachloride (BHC),Footnote ¹⁷⁹ both now long prohibited. This led to increased resistance on the part of insects and other pests, and “[t]he use of pesticides increased until their costs amounted to 25 per cent of the production costs of [apples]”, for example. At the time Chinese farmers made very effective use of “often unique” forms of environmentally-friendly integrated insect control for pest management.Footnote ¹⁸⁰ However, heavy dependence on pesticides continued.Footnote ¹⁸¹

Between 1991 and 2001, pesticide poisoning affected between 53,000 and 123,000 per year; deaths averaged about 10,000 per year, declining to less than 4,000 in 1996, including “about 300-500 deaths due to improper and over use of pesticide in crop production in normal years”.Footnote ¹⁸² Several years later, empirical research on the use of pesticides in vegetable production in Zhejiang Province about 2004 showed that almost 24 per cent of sampled farmers used highly toxic pesticides; most such users were older, less well-educated, unspecialised farmers, who sold their products to handlers rather than at wholesale markets or to agricultural product processing enterprises.Footnote ¹⁸³ In 2004 the Chinese Development and Reform Commission estimated that “500,000 Chinese suffer from pesticide poisoning every year and that the death toll from pesticides may exceed 500. For fruits and vegetables, scattered tests show that often up to 30 per cent of samples of vegetables have residue in excess of the norm”.Footnote ¹⁸⁴ Average use efficiency for pesticides in 2000 was only about 30 per cent, with (depending on the pesticide) consequent heavy pollution of soil and water.Footnote ¹⁸⁵

Research published in 2005 reported that “In 1983, the use of DDT and HCH was formally banned in China, yet small amounts of DDT [1,1,1,-trichloro-2,2-bis (p-chlorophenyl) and HCH[1,2,3,4,5,6-hexachlorocyclohexane] … are still being produced as raw materials for other chemicals or for export”.Footnote ¹⁸⁶ Endosulfan, a highly toxic pesticide which has been used in apple production in China since 1998,Footnote ¹⁸⁷ is on the list of banned pesticides recently notified by China to the WTO. In 2012 it was described as “a currently used organochlorine insecticide [which] has been extensively used for over 30 years on a wide variety of food crops, such as grains, tea, fruits, and vegetables, and on non-food crops ... [but as an insecticide for apples only since 1998], though still present in the soil”.Footnote ¹⁸⁸ As recently as January 2017, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in China reported that endosulfan is still used in cotton and tobacco production in China, though it has been banned in China for use on fruit and tea trees since 2002 and “has been phasing out globally due to its acute toxicity, potential for bioaccumulation, and its role as an endocrine disruptor that can cause cancerous tumors, birth defects, and other developmental disorders”.Footnote ¹⁸⁹

A World Bank study in 2006 coordinated by Cornelius van der Meer found that “Some 70 percent of all pesticides [used in China] are the organic phosphorus pesticides, and 70 percent of these are highly toxic. Most monitoring results show that methamidofos (one of the organic phosphorus pesticides) is the main noncompliance item”.Footnote ¹⁹⁰ Subsequently, an empirical research project in Guangdong, Jiangxi and Hubei Provinces studied the use of pesticides between 2009 and 2012, involving 183 varieties of pesticides, mainly organophosphates (such as omethoate, a highly toxic pesticide that is one of the eight pesticides on our list), pyrethroids (a group of median toxic pesticides) and others. Published in 2015, the research reportedly was “the first to comprehensively examine the human health effects of frequent pesticide exposure in China”. It found “that there were extensive long-term and short-term health effects in farmers exposed to pesticides. The former involved peripheral nervous system, white blood cells, liver, electrolytes, and the latter involved blood cells, liver, kidney, electrolytes and peripheral nervous system”.Footnote ¹⁹¹

3 Pesticide residues

In general, the use of pesticides in agriculture is often closely related to the extent of pesticide residues in food, though this depends on the pesticide in question. A 2002 study showed that, although the use in agriculture of highly toxic organochlorine pesticides (HCH: hexachlorocylohexanes, and DDT: dichlorodiphenyltrichlorethane) had been banned for more than 20 years, pesticide residues could still be detected in dietary products, including fruit, from Shaanxi Province, indicating continued misuse of these pesticides. The authors remarked that residues were below national maximum residue limits (MRLs), but the MRLs were “relatively higher because large amounts of HCH and DDT were widely used as pesticides in China” in the past.Footnote ¹⁹²

However, another study, published in 2005, concluded that while fenpropathrin, a type of pyrethroid, was widely used in Shaanxi Province apple production, the application of the pesticide conformed to national standards and the pesticide residue in apple juice met maximum residue limits in China.Footnote ¹⁹³ This study did not consider fresh fruit. Similar conclusions were reached in a study of pesticide residues in fruits and vegetables in Xiamen, though the authors recommended continued monitoring and “tighter regulation”.Footnote ¹⁹⁴ A similar, much more recent study of pesticide residues in fresh apples in Hebei Province concluded that pesticide residues, including chlorpyrifos, were limited and did not have a negative effect on the safety and quality of the fruit;Footnote ¹⁹⁵ chlorpyrifos is included in our list of eight pesticides. Some recent monitoring of vegetable products shows a decline in pesticide use and pesticide residues.Footnote ¹⁹⁶

More recent research, unfortunately, has produced less salutary results. A 2010 study of market vegetables in Shaanxi Province found that residues of omethoate, phorate, chlorpyrifos, methidathion and ethoprophos exceeded the MRLs;Footnote ¹⁹⁷ omethoate, chlorpyrifos and methidathion are included on our list. As of 2013 it seems that organophosphorus and carbamate pesticides accounted for about 70 per cent of total pesticides applied in Chinese agriculture.Footnote ¹⁹⁸ Pesticide residues reportedly remain “among the most common causes of food poisoning in China”.Footnote ¹⁹⁹

More broadly, the risk of substantial pesticide residues in food resulting from the use of toxic pesticides in agricultural production may have a serious impact on China’s international trade, precisely because of the feared health effects on people in importing countries. For example, after Japan revised its MRL for the pesticide chlorpyrifos in 2002, exports of spinach from China dropped from more than US$ 33 million in 2001 to less than US$ 4 million in 2003.Footnote ²⁰⁰ In 2016, the US FDA rejected more than 45 fruit products from China because of pesticide residues.Footnote ²⁰¹ In the EU, exports from China received 258 notifications between 28 November 1989 and 26 November 2016, including 103 concerning pesticide residues, notably chlorpyrifos.Footnote ²⁰² To give only one recent example, the United Kingdom in July 2015 rejected imports of Chinese broccoli containing chlorpyrifos and chlorfenapyr.Footnote ²⁰³ Chlorpyrifos is on our list of eight pesticides.

IV RISK REGULATION

1 The labyrinth

To study the regulation in China of agricultural use of pesticides and the presence of pesticide residues in food is to enter a veritable labyrinth. Data is often scattered, incomplete, not always up-to-date or not easily available. Among the more specific obstacles are the specific characteristics and complexity of the Chinese administrative legal system, lack of coordination among different types of norms, the sheer number and scientific complexity of standards, frequent lack of data about current status and implementation of rules and the extent of compliance with rules of different types. This generalisation may be true everywhere, but it is especially appropriate in the Chinese context, because of the size of the country, the complexity of economic relations and a frequent lack of transparency about relations between business and government. Nevertheless, this section presents selected data as is available to us about the regulation of the eight pesticides in China. Further information to improve our analysis would be welcome.

China has a long history of pest management in agriculture.Footnote ²⁰⁴ From a legal perspective, regulation of pesticide use in China is a prime example of extreme legal pluralism. Here we focus mainly on Chinese national domestic law, regulations and standards, with some attention to selected provincial measures; a separate article will discuss international agreements, international standards, provincial and municipal measures and norms from other sources.Footnote ²⁰⁵

2 Two regulatory paths

A simple conceptual model will be helpful in understanding the dialectics between use and regulation of pesticides. We can conceive of the regulation of pesticides as involving two regulatory paths,Footnote ²⁰⁶ each being composed of various types of norms and each having different primary regulatory targets (regulated actors or regulatees). The first regulatory path focuses on the use of pesticides in agricultural production. It concerns pesticides the use of which is legally prohibited or restricted, whether generally, or for specific products, or in other ways. The second regulatory path focuses on consumer protection. Pesticides in this category may be used in agricultural production, either generally or according to specified restrictions. However, once these pesticides become part of an edible agricultural product, their residue is subject to regulation further along the value chain. Such regulation may take the form of an MRL, a reference dose (RfD) or an acceptable daily intake (ADI), any two of these, or all three. The two regulatory paths are analytically and legally distinct, but nonetheless they are intimately related and interconnected in practice. One example of the interconnection is the reciprocal relationship between recent changes in farming practice, on the one hand, and consumer (and producer) preferences for unpolluted food, green food, or organic food, on the other hand.Footnote ²⁰⁷ In this article, for reasons of the logic and coherence of our general argument and policy recommendations, as well as considerations of space, we focus principally on agricultural use of pesticides, so here we deal mainly with the first regulatory path; in separate articles we discuss the second regulatory path.Footnote ²⁰⁸

3 Normative framework

a. National rules

In China, the first regulatory path consists of three general measures, two legislative and one administrative. Together, they comprise the general normative framework in China for regulation of toxic pesticides. Following the hierarchy of norms in Chinese law, we first discuss legislation in chronological order and then turn to administrative regulations and recent reforms.Footnote ²⁰⁹

First, the 2006 Law on the Quality and Safety of Agricultural Products (Law on Agricultural Product Quality Safety)Footnote ²¹⁰ applies to edible agricultural products. It states that agricultural producers “shall rationally use chemical products, such as … pesticides … in order to avoid contaminating the production places of agricultural products” (Article 19). An administrative permission system is to be applied to “such pesticides … as may impair the quality and safety of agricultural products” (Article 21, paragraph 1). The Ministry of Agriculture and lower-level agricultural departments are responsible for conducting regular supervision and spot checks on pesticides and other inputs, and publishing the results of spot checks (Article 21, paragraph 2).

The second legislative measure is the 2015 Food Safety Law (FSL 2015).Footnote ²¹¹ Previously, under its predecessor the 2009 Food Safety Law,Footnote ²¹² edible agricultural products were regulated almost entirely by the Agricultural Law, except for standards development and communication of food safety information. Now, however, FSL 2015 brings edible agricultural products more fully under its scope, that is, within the administrative regulatory jurisdiction of the Ministry of Health rather than that of the Ministry of Agriculture. It applies to agricultural inputs (Article 2(6), see also Article 11, paragraph 2).

FSL 2015 states, for example, that pesticides can be used only “in accordance with food safety standards and relevant State provisions and [farmers must] strictly adhere to the regulations on the intervals for application and withdrawal, and shall not use the agricultural inputs clearly prohibited by the State” (Article 49, paragraph 1). The State is to apply a strict management system to pesticide use, “accelerate elimination of hyper toxic, highly toxic and highly residual pesticides”;Footnote ²¹³ stimulate research and development of substitutes and encourage the use of pesticides with “high efficiency, low toxicity and low residual” (Article 11, paragraph 2). The use of hyper toxic or highly toxic pesticides is prohibited in production of vegetables, fruits, teas, Chinese medicinal herbs and other specified crops (Article 49, paragraph 1). FSL 2015 provides for specific sanctions for use of hyper topic or highly toxic pesticides (Article 123, paragraph 6(2))Footnote ²¹⁴ and for producing or trading food in which “pathogenic microorganisms, pesticide residues, veterinary drug residues, biological toxins, heavy metals and other polluting substances, as well as other substances harmful to human health exceed the limits prescribed by food safety standards” (Article 124, paragraph 1(1)).Footnote ²¹⁵

The third measure is the Chinese State Council Regulations on Pesticide Administration.Footnote ²¹⁶ Also known as the Regulation for the Control of Agrochemicals, the Pesticide Regulations define “pesticide” to mean:

“any substance or mixture of substances chemically synthesized or originating from biological and other natural substances and the formulations made from these substances used for preventing, destroying or controlling diseases, pests, weeds and other harmful organisms inimical to agriculture and forestry and for regulating the growth of plants and animals”.Footnote ²¹⁷

These Regulations set out rules for the production of pesticides, establish a pesticide registration system, provide for the distribution of pesticides and establish rules for use. A pesticide must be registered before it can be manufactured, sold or used. New products must obtain a certificate for field test before being granted a temporary registration certificate which allows further tests and trial sale and eventually a Pesticide Registration Certificate to allow production and distribution.Footnote ²¹⁸ Pesticide use must conform to State rules on “safe and rational use of pesticides” (Article 27, paragraph 1). “Extremely and highly toxic pesticides shall not be used for the prevention and control of insects harmful to public health nor on vegetables, melons, fruits, tea and Chinese medicinal herbs” (Article 27, paragraph 2). More specific administrative measuresFootnote ²¹⁹ govern GLP accreditation of pesticide laboratories;Footnote ²²⁰ manufacturing of pesticides;Footnote ²²¹ rules for obtaining a production licence from AQSIQ for pesticides for which China has established a national or industrial quality standard;Footnote ²²² residue testing facilities for pesticide registration;Footnote ²²³ registration of new, generic and other pesticides;Footnote ²²⁴ the registration, use, marketing and supervision of pesticides;Footnote ²²⁵ pesticide labels and user manuals;Footnote ²²⁶ advertisement of pesticides;Footnote ²²⁷ the restriction of pesticide use;Footnote ²²⁸ and maximum residue limits on pesticides in food.Footnote ²²⁹

According to the Measures for Implementing the Regulation on Pesticide Administration,Footnote ²³⁰ the Ministry of Agriculture is responsible for supervision of registration and use of pesticides, and the Institute for the Control of Agrochemicals under the Ministry of Agriculture (ICAMA)Footnote ²³¹ is responsible for the implementation of pesticide registration. All these regulations and other rules are national measures and apply throughout China.

As a result of the disastrous explosion of a chemical storage facility in Tianjin in August 2015,Footnote ²³² the Chinese Government has taken wide-ranging measures to control use of hazardous chemicals, including toxic pesticides. The State Council on 29 November 2016 issued a “Comprehensive Action Plan on the Safety Control of Hazardous Chemicals” (危险化学品安全综合治理方案)”.Footnote ²³³ It provided guidelines for governmental authorities in dealing with hazardous chemicals. The Ministry of Agriculture on 28 December 2016 submitted to the General Office of the State Council the “Implementation Plan for the Integrated Management of Hazardous Pesticides”. It foresaw the promulgation, within a year, of two important measures. First, a “List of Restricted Pesticides”, based on the pesticides included in the Chinese Catalogue of Hazardous Chemicals,Footnote ²³⁴ would categorise pesticides according to magnitude of risk. Second, “Measures for the Operation License Management of Pesticide”, which would severely restrict marketing of pesticides, because restricted pesticides would be sold only by designated shops on the basis of a real name purchase system.Footnote ²³⁵

On 8 February 2017 the State Council adopted a draft of revised Regulations on Pesticide Administration. It provides that the Ministry of Agriculture is to be the sole regulatory authority with “complete control of both pesticide production and management” to avoid the current fragmentation of administrative responsibility, introduces a new system of business licenses, seeks to discourage the use of pesticides by reducing the overall volume used during production and introduces measures for more stringent supervision of highly toxic pesticide. It also makes manufacturer and suppliers responsible for “the safety and efficiency” of pesticides and increases sanctions on production and sale of fake pesticides.Footnote ²³⁶ The revised Regulations are expected to be issued in the near future.Footnote ²³⁷

b. Provincial and municipal rules

In addition to national legislation and administrative regulations, a host of provincial and municipal rules govern the agricultural use of pesticides. Provinces differ, however, in the extent to which they rely on national rules or enact their own provincial rules. For example, Shaanxi Province appears to rely mainly on national rules. Nevertheless, Provincial Regulations on Pesticide Administration provides specific sanctions for production or marketing of pesticides without authorisation or the registration of which has been cancelled.Footnote ²³⁸ The city of Xi’an sets fees for registration of pesticides and has issued a notice to reduce the production of highly toxic pesticides and to encourage high-tech companies to produce new low-risk pesticides.Footnote ²³⁹

In contrast, Shandong Province has adopted numerous provincial orders. The Shandong Regulations on Pesticide AdministrationFootnote ²⁴⁰ seek to localise the State Council Regulations on Pesticide Administration. The Agricultural Product Quality Regulation (Provincial Order No 277) is intended to improve coordination of government departments, provide guidelines for sanctions, and improve the quality of pesticides.Footnote ²⁴¹ Shandong Province has also promulgated the Shandong Pesticide Management in Supervision and Spot-Checking RegulationFootnote ²⁴² to facilitate supervision of pesticide use and the Shandong Registration of Pesticide Selling AdministrationFootnote ²⁴³ to govern registration of pesticide sales. A coastal province, Shandong has adopted the Shandong Import Agricultural Product Administration (Provincial Order No 189) which encourages the use of foreign standards as a criterion for selection and use of pesticides.Footnote ²⁴⁴ It has also promulgated rules on management of the Volume of High-Risk Pesticides; the list includes omethoate, methidathion and dimethoate.Footnote ²⁴⁵ It has issued a notice requiring improvement of plowed land, designed to reduce pesticide residues.Footnote ²⁴⁶

4 Implementation, enforcement and compliance

The eight pesticides with which we are concerned here can be situated clearly in this normative framework, if we also include very specific Ministerial announcements, notices or other measures taken according to the basic legislation, administrative regulations and standards. Some toxic pesticides are banned in agricultural production. A pesticide which is banned cannot be manufactured, marketed or used. The agricultural use of phosphamidon was banned in 2008 because of its high toxicity.Footnote ²⁴⁷ Then in 2015 the Ministry of Agriculture on 2 July 2015 revoked the registration of methidathion, a pesticide on our list, for use in the production of oranges and tangerines. The use of methidathion was prohibited as of 1 October 2015 in the production of “vegetables, fruit, melon, tea, sugarcane and medicinal herb”.Footnote ²⁴⁸ ICAMA then requested many provinces, including the main pesticide-producing provinces of Jiangsu and Shandong, to carry out risk reviews on dimethoate and other pesticides as of August 2015.Footnote ²⁴⁹

Based on the Chinese government list of banned pesticides, the Pesticide Action Network (PAN) International reported that as of July 2015 China reported that 46 pesticides are banned in China, including methidathion, omethoate and phosphamidonFootnote ²⁵⁰ which are on our list of eight pesticides. The agricultural use of certain other pesticides is restricted. The use of omethoate is prohibited on cabbage and citrus trees due to its high toxicity.Footnote ²⁵¹ This data is inconsistent with the PAN classification, but it appears from other sources that omethoate is currently used, for example, in wheat production;Footnote ²⁵² it is on our list. For chlorpyrifos, one of the eight pesticides on our list, new registration for use on vegetables was stopped on 9 December 2013, registration for use on vegetables was cancelled as of 31 December 2014, and use in vegetable production was banned as of 31 December 2016 because of the dietary risks of excessive residues.Footnote ²⁵³

In summary, the following four of the eight pesticides are currently banned from being used legally in agricultural production or are highly restricted: chlorpyrifus, methidathion (at least for many agricultural uses and perhaps for all), omethoate and phosphamidon. The use of three of the eight pesticides in agricultural production seems, however, to be permitted without restrictions: bifenthrin, diazinon and phosmet. Bifenthrin is used in the production of peaches.Footnote ²⁵⁴ The registration of diazinon was approved in May 2015.Footnote ²⁵⁵ Dimethoate, as noted above, is currently being reviewed. In 2011, ICAMA invited public comment on a proposed MRL for phosmet.Footnote ²⁵⁶

Attempts to enforce such bans or restrictions appear to take two main forms: administrative measures or recourse to courts. Administrative measures may concern either the first or the second regulatory path. Concerning administrative measures, if a pesticide is banned, the Ministry of Agriculture is to withdraw registration of the pesticide. In addition, it may limit points of sale. For example, the Ministry of Agriculture in 2015 issued a notice which permits the sale of highly toxic pesticides in certain locations and on a provisional basis. It applies to Hebei, Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Shandong, Shanxi, Jiangsu, Hunan and Sichuan provinces. The notice expressly states that the sale of highly toxic pesticides is banned in areas where vegetables, fruits, tea leaves and Chinese herbs are mainly produced.Footnote ²⁵⁷ More recently, the Agricultural Bureau of Dongying City [东营市] in Shandong Province reduced the number of stores permitted to sell highly toxic pesticides from 44 to 20 and introduced measures to improve the traceability of highly toxic pesticides.Footnote ²⁵⁸ These kinds of measures concern the first regulatory path, which seeks to govern the use of pesticides in agricultural production.

Finally, the NHFPC can introduce MRLs for a specific agricultural product. This administrative method acts on the second regulatory path in the expectation that the newly introduced or reduced MRL will affect the first regulatory path, in other words agricultural use of the pesticide. Table 3 shows the number of crops for which an MRL has been set for each pesticide in successive revisions of the national food safety standard for MRLs.Footnote ²⁵⁹ It indicates that considerable progress has been made in the introduction of MRLs for the eight pesticides for various crops.

Table 3

Progress in Introduction of MRLs

A second route is by recourse to the courts.Footnote ²⁶⁰ Litigation concerns the first regulatory path, referring to the use of pesticides in agricultural production. The pkudata (北大法宝) legal database includes nearly 1,000 cases concerning pesticides between 1997 and 2017. The Ministry of Agriculture reported about 3,750 cases concerning pesticides in 2015 alone. Cases concern civil law (eg contract disputes involving pesticides, tort, intellectual property rights), administrative law (mainly focusing on governmental behaviour) or criminal law (eg economic loss caused by fake pesticides).Footnote ²⁶¹ They range from the Supreme People’s Court level to local court level. For example, there were more than 20 intellectual property cases concerning pesticides in China in 2005, including two won by Bayer Crop Science China against counterfeit brands and packaging.Footnote ²⁶² Numerous administrative law cases concern failure to register or label pesticides. Many criminal cases brought in local or provincial courts involve charges under Article 147 of the Criminal Law; civil cases concern Criminal Law as alleged crimes of undermining the socialist market economy order by manufacturing or selling fake or shoddy goods.Footnote ²⁶³

Law and legal processes are important from the normative standpoint and potentially may lead to significant improvements in agricultural practices. Unfortunately, however, they are not always respected in reality. An important empirical study based on research conducted between 2006 and 2011 stated that

“The Chinese government has banned the use of highly toxic, highly residual, carcinogenic, teratogeneric, and/or mutagenic pesticides and has required rigid adherence to safe application standards and rational application guidelines of pesticides. However, banned/prohibited pesticides continue to be used in actual agricultural production, and pesticide abuse violating the safe application standards and rational application guidelines of pesticides remains widespread”.Footnote ²⁶⁴

A good example is carbofuran, which is a highly hazardous pesticide that has been banned in China since 2002. However, as of October 2014 a team from the Institute for the Control of Agrochemicals of the Ministry of Agriculture reported that carbofuran, which was banned or restricted in some countries, was one of “twelve highly hazardous pesticides still in use in China” and was used in 183 registered products.Footnote ²⁶⁵ This example shows that, in some instances at least, national prohibitions on the use of highly toxic pesticides remain ineffective.

Two more important recent studies shed further light on implementation, enforcement and compliance. The first study, following an extensive literature review, was based on extensive interviews in Shaanxi Province between July and December 2011. It found that most farmers used unrestricted pesticides but some applied restricted pesticides, such as methidathion and omethoate, both included in our group of eight pesticides; others were asomate, phorate, isocarbophos, methomyl. The key factor affecting farmers’ choice of pesticide was the advice of retailers; lack of knowledge of pesticides and lack of education were also important.Footnote ²⁶⁶ The second study, which focuses on vegetable farmers in Hunan Province, elucidates the range of variables which influence compliance with the regulatory regime, including provincial rules. It shows that a large proportion of farmers avoid highly toxic pesticides. It also found, however, that compliance tended to vary with farm size or organisation, that pesticide retailers played an important role in influencing pesticide use and that lack of resources and unclear rules influenced enforcement and compliance.Footnote ²⁶⁷

It is useful, however, to note that illegal use of toxic pesticides continues, because these observations support our policy recommendations that further action is necessary. Knowledge and regulation of toxic pesticides is increasing, but implementation of and compliance with law remains a problem. It is reported that banned pesticides are sold illegally and continue to be used.Footnote ²⁶⁸ Many banned pesticides are available in the countryside, especially in small and remote stores. Once farmers show an interest in banned pesticides such as methamidopos，moncrotophos and chlordimeform (banned even in 1993), the stores will contact farmers and send pesticides to their home. In addition, those stores work with illegal manufacturers who produce banned pesticides; for example, in the name of insecticidal cream, they are actually selling chlordimeform. Such stores sometimes use as a selling mode called product mix (bundling). Farmers buy one kind of pesticide which is allowed, and the store will send another free of charge. The latter appears most of time to be banned pesticides, though often this may not be noticed by farmers.Footnote ²⁶⁹ This practice is strictly illegal and is sanctioned under the Regulations on Pesticide Administration.Footnote ²⁷⁰

V ANALYSIS

This article focused on eight pesticides and the law. The eight pesticides are chlorpyrifos, diazinon, dimethoate, methidathion, omethoate, phosmet and phosphamidon, all of which are organophosphate pesticides, and bifenthrin, which is a pyrethroid pesticide. The article concentrated mainly on the regulation of their use in agricultural production. The law discussed here was mainly Chinese national law, administrative regulations and standards, leaving international law and provincial and municipal norms for another occasion. Our purpose has been to bring together widely accepted scientific data, scattered available research on agricultural practices, and aspects of Chinese domestic law so as to illuminate the relationship between the use and regulation of pesticides, and thus to contribute to improvements in public health in China. From this brief tale, we can draw several conclusions.

First, all eight pesticides considered here are on the PAN list of Highly Hazardous Pesticides (HHPs).Footnote ²⁷¹ Scientific knowledge, including medical research, is constantly evolving, and the practices of pesticide manufacturers, suppliers, users and regulators are also changing and may differ in different contexts. In addition, risk assessments of a pesticide may be dose-dependent; they do not necessarily take account of the effects of accumulation of the same pesticide over time or of the effects of interaction between different pesticides. Moreover, risk assessments do not necessarily determine the form of risk regulation, even though they should and usually do inform governmental policy regarding the evaluation and to some extent the communication of risks.

Second, we note that Chinese regulatory law on the books concerning the use of these pesticides in agricultural production compares favourably with that of China’s main trading partners. For example, diazinon is banned in the EUFootnote ²⁷² but approved for agricultural use in China,Footnote ²⁷³ RussiaFootnote ²⁷⁴ and the United States.Footnote ²⁷⁵ Methidathion is banned in ChinaFootnote ²⁷⁶ and the EUFootnote ²⁷⁷ but allowed in RussiaFootnote ²⁷⁸ and the United States.Footnote ²⁷⁹ Phosmet is banned in RussiaFootnote ²⁸⁰ and the United StatesFootnote ²⁸¹ but approved in ChinaFootnote ²⁸² and the EU.Footnote ²⁸³ The Chinese government today aspires to make rapid progress in the regulation of toxic pesticides, participates very actively in international standards bodies and chairs the Codex Alimentarius Committee on Pesticide Residues.Footnote ²⁸⁴ Clearly, its policies recognise the close link between agricultural use of pesticides and the presence of pesticide residues in food, in other words between domestic public health policy and trade. The interconnection between domestic public health policy and international trade has become increasingly important in conjunction with China’s economic transformation and very significant role in international food trade.

Third, formidable obstacles still exist to the development of adequate regulation of pesticides.Footnote ²⁸⁵ These observations highlight general issues about the gap between “law on the books” and “law in action”. Such a gap is universal, but its particular form tends to vary from one country to another. Historical factors, legal culture and constraints related to financial resources, trained personnel, appropriate equipment, available time and conflicting priorities inevitably affect government policy. So too do the size and per capita income of the country. Inevitably, special factors may apply to the implementation of law in China. Vague laws and standards, lack of capacity, bureaucratic competition and lack of coordination, and overly close relations between government and regulated enterprises are particular problems.Footnote ²⁸⁶ A 2015 study remarked, for example, that for pesticides “the Ministry of Agriculture monitors field use, the state planner and the Commerce Ministry grant production licenses, the Ministry of Health is responsible for setting maximum residue levels, and the State Environmental Protection Administration monitors environmental impacts”.Footnote ²⁸⁷ The Chinese government is seeking gradually to overcome or minimise the effects of the principle of “one supervision link subject to the supervision of one department” (“regulation by segment”) established in 2004.Footnote ²⁸⁸ It is less easy to confront specific organisational characteristics such as the tension between vertical and horizontal relations in the organisation of Chinese government.Footnote ²⁸⁹ Recent reforms may alleviate these concerns.

Fourth, there appears to be a real problem of the coherence and integration of different types of norms. For example, withdrawing registration of a pesticide, on the one hand, and restricting but allowing sale, on the other hand, may appear to be contradictory, unless the latter is temporary. In addition, it is reported that “a number of small-scale chemical factories continue to produce counterfeit products, sometimes in small quantities”,Footnote ²⁹⁰ which may undermine public health.Footnote ²⁹¹ As one author has written, however, the implementation of law in China “can be understood to arise as a result of an adjustment to expectations internal and external to regulatory officials. These expectations vary widely from the regulatory norms generally espoused in law … These shared understandings are the true normative framework underlying administrative regulation not reflected by explicit legal doctrine”.Footnote ²⁹²

VI POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS

On the basis of the discussion thus far, it is possible to identify specific implications for government policy. We propose the following:

(1) A high priority should be to phase out these highly toxic and toxic pesticides. The 2015 Food Safety Law provides an essential baseline for these reforms. The recently released draft revised Regulations on Pesticide Administration are an important step in this direction, because they clarify regulatory authority and improve supervision of highly toxic pesticides.Footnote ²⁹³ Recent provincial and municipal policies and rules concerning toxic pesticides signal important progress. Following the Chinese practice of adaptability and experimental governance,Footnote ²⁹⁴ different provinces and cities frequently use different normative instruments. Especially impressive are measures taken recently in Shaanxi and Shandong Provinces and by Xi’an City. For example, Shaanxi Province has put in place progressive policies to reduce highly toxic pesticides by 2020. Xi’an People’s Government Executive Office has adopted an executive order concerning registration fees to supervise, control and reduce the use of pesticides and fertilisers. Shandong Province has enacted regulations on pesticide administration and selling; the Shandong Regulations on Pesticide Administration and Management (Provincial Order No 121) includes dimethoate, methidathion and omethoate on the list of high-risk pesticides.Footnote ²⁹⁵
(2) Regulatory policies should now focus on the value chains of these eight pesticides. An optimum strategy would be to concentrate first on smaller groups of regulatees (manufacturers, suppliers), and then on increasingly larger groups of regulatees (retailers, farmers).The first priority, therefore, should be stricter supervision of manufacture and registration of pesticides. The second priority should be increased control of the supply of pesticides. The third priority should be on more effective supervision and management of retailers; an important recent study identified the advice of retailers as the most important determinant of farmers’ use of pesticides.Footnote ²⁹⁶ The fourth priority should be improvement of extension education and training of agricultural producers in the use of less toxic pesticides, including wearing protective clothing,Footnote ²⁹⁷ and in active development of integrated insect control as far as possible.Footnote ²⁹⁸ This is despite the facts that manufacturers and suppliers are both more likely to resist change and perhaps more likely to embrace change than are farmers.Footnote ²⁹⁹ This order of priority is based on three reasons. The first reason is that regulation of pesticides in China operates in a context of severely limited reasons. Moreover, responsive regulation, involving both regulator and regulatee, is likely to be more effective than command-and-control regulation. In addition, powerful regulatees have more to gain by effective regulation because of the effects on their reputation, though this depends partly on consumer awareness and the role of the media. In other words, concentrating first on farmers may be the least efficient and least effective regulatory strategy, even though it may seem at first glance to be the most easily available strategy.
(3) Consideration should be given to using different normative instruments with regard to each group of regulatees. The framework is legally binding legislation (Food Safety Law 2015, Law on Agricultural Product Quality Safety) and administrative regulations (Pesticide Regulations). New recent reforms also involve legally binding provincial or municipal measures. In addition, however, further work should be done on the possibility of using guidelines or other forms of soft law, such as ISO standards or ChinaGAP, to regulate retailers and farmers.
(4) Pesticide manufacturers and suppliers should be required to develop standards higher than national standards. Such standards would be soft law guidelines, based on governmental instructions or another ministerial normative document following the practice of administrative specification of law (falu de jutihua).Footnote ³⁰⁰ The guidelines themselves would not be legally binding but could be even more effective than legally binding standards if they are set in a suitable institutional context and supported by larger manufacturers and producers. The application of these standards should be supervised, monitored and certified by a third party certification body. This system of accountability, combined with other accountability mechanisms such as certification and labelling,Footnote ³⁰¹ would benefit the entire pesticide value chain, in particular farmers and consumers. The adoption of enterprise standards higher than national standards is encouraged by China’s Food Safety Law and policy. It may also be easier to adopt and to implement than legally binding standards. If successful, it would have a very significant constraining effect on downstream parts of the value chain.
(5) A unified system of regulation of pesticides should be established and put on the internet. The 2015 Food Safety Law already provides a legal basis for such a system. Its Article 118 provides that “The state shall establish a unified food safety information platform and adopt a uniform food safety information release system”. Manufacturers, suppliers, exporters, agricultural producers and consumers thus would have easily accessible information concerning pesticides and pesticide residues. Such “public transparency” would also help to reassure consumers in China and elsewhere.Footnote ³⁰²
(6) The Food Safety Law 2015 and continuing reform of the Pesticide Regulations already address the long-standing question of regulatory competition among ministries and ministry-level organisations of central government and among central government and local government. With the example of pesticides expressly in mind, but also taking account of other aspects of food safety regulation, specific State Council measures, including soft law, should be taken to avoid unnecessary competition which might hinder the enforcement of rules concerning pesticides.
(7) China should work with its main trading partners, including the BRICS, and with non-governmental organisations to phase out these eight pesticides. The historical development of pesticides suggests a continual search for a better balance between plant protection and human health.Footnote ³⁰³ More attention deserves to be paid to the integrated insect control.
(8) The entire value chain, including manufacturers, suppliers, exporters and farmers, including specialist food producers, as well as the general public of consumers should be engaged in support of application, compliance and enforcement of the law, regulations and other measures concerning pesticides. Often today, highly toxic pesticides are used to produce food even after being heavily regulated or banned. Article 23 of the 2015 Food Safety Law provides a legal basis for this form of “society co-governance”.Footnote ³⁰⁴ A broad social consensus about the importance of ensuring public health is likely to be the most effective means of limiting abusive and harmful use of pesticides. The governance of pesticides should be addressed not in isolation but instead in the broader context of public health.Footnote ³⁰⁵ The flouting of pesticide rules cannot be isolated from other unintentional or intentional attacks of public health. A broad-based education campaignFootnote ³⁰⁶ for companies and citizens regarding the dangers of toxic pesticides is required. Pesticide regulation is likely to be most effective if it is part of a broader programme to protect public health.

VII CONCLUSION

In this article we have focused on the use and regulation in China of eight toxic pesticides in agricultural production: bifenthrin, chlorpyrifus, diazinon, dimethoate, methidathion, omethoate, phosmet and phosphamidon. Adopting perspectives from public health, economic sociology and law, we considered the principal characteristics of these pesticides, the main health risks associated with their use in agricultural production and how these pesticides in agricultural production currently are regulated in Chinese law. On this basis, we identified a series of policy implications and made specific policy recommendations concerning risk regulation of these eight pesticides.

The tale of eight pesticides is far from being finished. Scientific and medical research, agricultural technology, economic structures and processes, and forms of social regulation all continue to develop, often rapidly. In this changing context, our modest hope is that this article may contribute to improvements in public health in China.

Footnotes

CV Starr Professor of Law, EU Jean Monnet Chair ad personam and Director, Centre for Research on Transnational Law, Peking University School of Transnational Law, Peking University Shenzhen Graduate School, Shenzhen, China; Special Endowed Chair Professor of Food Safety, Northwest University of Agriculture and Forestry, Yangling, Shaanxi, China; Emeritus Professor, CERIC, Aix-Marseille University, France; Visiting Professor, College of Europe, Bruges, Belgium.

BA, Nanchang University; JD and JM Candidate, Peking University School of Transnational Law, and Research Assistant, Centre for Research on Transnational Law, Peking University School of Transnational Law, Peking University Shenzhen Graduate School, Shenzhen, China.

¹ A draft of this article was presented at the Faculty Research Workshop, Peking University School of Transnational Law, Peking University Shenzhen Graduate School, 1 March 2017. We are grateful for the many comments on that occasion. We also wish to thank Wei Gong, Norman P Ho, KS Leung, Imelda Maher, Qianlan Wu, Ting Xu for detailed comments. We are grateful to Hu Zhouke, Yi Seul Kim, Anne-Lise Strahtmann and the Food Safety Research Group, Peking University School of Transnational Law, for research assistance and other contributions to the article. We are also grateful to an anonymous reader for the EJRR for helpful comments. We wish to thank Peking University School of Transnational Law and Peking University Shenzhen Graduate School for financial support.

² Carson, R, Silent Spring (New York, Houghton Mifflin, 1962). On the earlier period, see Whorton, JC, Before Silent Spring: Pesticides and Public Health in Pre-DDT America (Princeton University Press, Princeton, reprinted 2015). As early as 1936, pesticide residues were raised as a public health issue in the United States. See R deforest Lamb [chief executive officer of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA)], American Chamber of Horrors: The Truth about Food and Drugs (Farrar and Rinehart, New York, 1936), noted in Courtney Thomas, IP, In Food We Trust: The Politics of Purity in American Food Regulation (Lincoln, University of Nebraska Press, 2014) 25–26. Dr Lamb’s book led to enactment of the US 1938 Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act.

³ For a recent overview, see Forum on Health, Environment and Development (FORHEAD), “Food Safety in China: A Mapping of Problems, Governance and Research”, FORHEAD and Social Science Research Council, Working Group on Food Safety, February 2014, 32–35.

⁴ D Patton, “China farm pollution worsens, despite moves to curb excessive fertilizers, pesticides”, Reuters Environment (14 April 2015) available at www.reuters.com/article/us-china-agriculture-pollution-idUSKBN0N50L720150414, accessed 15 August 2017. See also Jikun Huang et al, “Ignoring The Labels: An Analysis of Pesticide Use in China”, Economy and Environment Program for Southeast Asia, EEPSA Policy Brief No 2001 – PB3, available at www.eepsea.org/pub/pb/116128.pdf, accessed 15 August 2017.

⁵ Supra, note 3, 32–35, which reported (at 32) that “[o]veruse of pesticides is recognized to be a major problem”.

⁶ Worldometers, “China Population”, available at www.worldometers.info/world-population/china-population/, accessed 1 December 2016.

⁷ OECD, Agricultural Policy Monitoring and Evaluation 2015 (Paris, Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2015) 113; United States Central Intelligence Agency, The World Factbook, www.cia.gov/library/publications/resources/the-world-factbook/fields/2097.html, accessed 3 September 2017 (more specifically, China’s arable land accounts for 11.3%).

⁸ See also Zhang, C et al., “Overuse or underuse? An observation of pesticide use in China” (2015) 538 Science of the Total Environment 1–6 , available at www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26296070, accessed 15 August 2017; and Max Roser, “Fertilizer and Pesticides” (2016), published online at OurWorldInData.org, available at https://ourworldindata.org/fertilizer-and-pesticides/, accessed 21 February 2017.

⁹ Ji’yun, Nie, et al, “苹果农药残留风险评估” [pinyin version: Ping guo nong yao can liu feng xian ping gu; Original Source: NKI (National Knowledge Infrastructure)] [“Risk Assessment of Pesticide Residues in Apples”] 中国农业科学 [(2015) 47(18) Scientia Agricultura Sinica] 3655–3667 , doi 10.3864/j/issn. 0578-1752.2014.18.013 [in Chinese]. The authors are specialists in apples, agriculture, and quality standards and testing technology for agricultural products.

¹⁰ See Matthews, GA, Pesticides: Health, Safety and the Environment, 2nd edn (Wiley Blackwell, 2016) 6–7 , 110–113; Wikipedia, “Organophosphates”, available at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organophosphate, accessed 15 August 2017. As early as 1962, Rachel Carson warned that “The organic phosphorus insecticides act on the living organism in a peculiar way. They have the ability to destroy enzymes – enzymes that perform necessary functions in the body. Their target is the nervous system…”: Carson, Silent Spring, supra, note 2, 28.

¹¹ See Matthews, supra, note 10; Wikipedia, “Pyrethroid”, available at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrethroid, accessed 23 January 2017.

¹² MacBean, C, The Pesticide Manual: A World Compendium, 16th edn (BCPC, 2012) xvi .

¹³ United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), “Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) Glossary”, available at https://iaspub.epa.gov/sor_internet/registry/termreg/searchandretrieve/glossariesandkeywordlists/search.do?details=&vocabName=IRIS%20Glossary, accessed 15 August 2017; Wikipedia, “Reference dose”, available at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reference_dose, accessed 15 August 2017.

¹⁴ The WHO/FAO Joint Meeting on Pesticide Residues (JMPR) regularly publishes toxicological reports on pesticide residues: see www.who.int/foodsafety/publications/jmpr-monographs/en/, accessed 28 March 2017. This article mainly concerns the use of pesticides in agricultural production, not pesticide residues in food. Consequently, it does not refer to JMPR monographs unless directly relevant to agricultural use of pesticides.

¹⁵ MacBean, supra, note 12, 1305. On the WTO toxicity classification system, see The WHO Recommended Classification of Pesticides by Hazard and Guidelines to Classification 2009, available at www.who.int/ipcs/publications/pesticides_hazard_2009.pdf?ua=1, accessed 24 January 2017.

¹⁶ See MacBean, supra, note 12, 1307–1308. The EU system was based originally on Council Directive 67/548/EEC of 27 June 1967 on the approximation of laws, regulations and administrative provisions relating to the classification, packaging and labelling of dangerous substances, OJ 196, 16.8.1967, 1–98, available at http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:31967L0548, accessed 15 August 2017. To ensure uniform application throughout the EU, this Directive was amended and repealed by Regulation (EC) No 1272/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 December 2008 on classification, labelling and packaging of substances and mixtures, amending and repealing Directives 67/548/EEC and 1999/45/EC, and amending Regulation (EC) No 1907/2006, OJ 196, 16.8.1967, 1–98. For the consolidated version of this Regulation, see http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:02008R1272-20150601&from=EN, accessed 15 August 2017.

¹⁷ http://pan-international.org/, accessed 15 August 2017.

¹⁸ PAN Pesticide Database – Chemicals, www.pesticideinfo.org/List_ChemicalsAlpha.jsp, accessed 15 August 2017.

¹⁹ On cholinesterase inhibitors, see Extoxnet (Extension Toxicology Network), “Cholinesterase Inhibition”, Toxicology Information Brief, Extoxnet is A Pesticide Information Project of Cooperative Extension Offices of Cornell University, Michigan State University, Oregon State University, and University of California at Davis. [publication date: 9/93], available at http://pmep.cce.cornell.edu/profiles/extoxnet/TIB/cholinesterase.html, accessed 15 August 2017. See also Wikipedia, “Acetylchonesterase inhibitor”, available at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acetylcholinesterase_inhibitor: Wikipedia, “Acetylcholine”, available at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acetylcholine, and Wikipedia,”SLUDGE syndrome”, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SLUDGE_syndrome, all accessed 15 August 2017.

²⁰ Mutagenicity refers to “a physical or chemical agent that changes the genetic material, usually DNA, of an organism and thus increases the frequency of mutations above the natural background level”: Wikipedia, “Mutagen”, available at www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutagen, accessed 15 August 2017.

²¹ Genotoxicity is “the property of chemical agents that damages the genetic information within a cell, causing mutations, which may lead to cancer”. “All mutagens are genotoxic, whereas not all genotoxic substances are mutagenic”: Wikipedia, “Genotoxicity”, available at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genotoxicity, accessed 15 August 2017. See also Wikipedia, “Mutagen”, available at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutagen, accessed 15 August 2017; Extoxnet, “Carcinogenicity”, available at http://pmep.cce.cornell.edu/profiles/extoxnet/TIB/carcinogenicity.html, accessed 15 August 2017; Wikipedia, “Carcinogen”, available at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carcinogen, accessed 15 August 2017.

²² Teratogenicity refers to the capacity to cause abnormalities in human development, either before or at birth or later: Wikipedia, “Teratology”, available at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teratology, accessed 15 August 2017.

²³ Endocrine disruption refers to “interfere[nce] with the synthesis, secretion, transport, binding action or elimination of natural hormones in the body that are responsible for development, behaviour, fertility and maintenance of homeostatis (normal cell metabolism)”: Thomas M Crisp, and others “Environmental Endocrine Disruption: An Effects Assessment and Analysis” (1998) 106(1) Environmental Health Perspectives 11–56, doi:10.2307/3433911. PMC 1533291, freely accessible, PMID 9539004. See also Wikipedia, “Endocrine Disruptor”, available at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endocrine_disruptor, accessed 15 August 2017, and Wikipedia, “Hormone”, available at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hormone, accessed 15 August 2017.

²⁴ See PAN Pesticide Database – Chemicals, “Chlorpyrifos”, available at www.pesticideinfo.org/Detail_Chemical.jsp?Rec_Id=PC33392, accessed 15 August 2017.

²⁵ See MacBean, supra, note 12, 119–201. Each pesticide has a unique reference number in the Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) Registry. CAS is a division of the American Chemical Society: see www.cas.org/, accessed 15 August 2017.

²⁶ MacBean, supra, note 12, 200.

²⁷ They included the following in China: Fengle, Fentshan, Hebei Kaidi, Hubei Sanonda, Jiangsu Baoling, Lianyungang Liben, Red Sun, Saeryung, Zhejiang DongFeng, Zhejiang Yongnong, Zhong Xi: MacBean, supra, note 12, 200.

²⁸ Including Agromil ([manufacturer:] Weststrade), Chlorfet (Vapso), Chlorofos (Mobedco), Clarnet (Lainco), Clinch II (Barclay), Cyren (Inquiport, Luxembourg), Dursban (Dow AgroSciences), Force (Nagarjuna Agrichem), Fullback (Reposo), Heraban (Heranba), Hilban (Hindustan), Hollywood (Rocca), Kirfos (Kemio), Knocker (Ingenieria Industrial), Lorsban (Dow AgroSciences), Mukka (Crop Health), Panda (Cequisa), Phantom (Sundat), Pyriban (Aimco), Pyrifoz (Hubei Sanonda), Pyrinex (Makhteshim-Agan), Radar (RPG), Robon (Ramcides), Strike (Biostadt), Tafaban (Rallis), Terraguard (Gharda) and Tricel (Excel Crop Care) as well as various mixtures. For a selection, see MacBean, supra, note 12, 200.

²⁹ See www.alibaba.com/countrysearch/CN/chlorpyrifos.html, accessed 15 August 2017.

³⁰ Wikipedia, “Teratology”, supra, note 22.

³¹ MacBean, supra, note 12, 201.

³² MacBean, supra, note 12, 201. See also supra, note 24.

³³ See also PubChem, Open Chemistry Database, “Compound Summary for CID 2730, Chlorpyrifos”, NIH, US National Library of Medicine, National Center for Biotechnology Information, available at https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/chlorpyrifos, accessed 15 August 2017, which notes “a likely link between chlorpyrifos application and lung cancer”.

³⁴ Supra, note 18.

³⁵ United States EPA, “About Pesticide Registration”, available at www.epa.gov/pesticide-registration/about-pesticide-registration, accessed 15 August 2017.

³⁶ See United States EPA, “Proposal to Revoke Chlorpyrifos Food Residue Tolerances”, available at www.epa.gov/ingredients-used-pesticide-products/revised-human-health-risk-assessment-chlorpyrifos, accessed 3 September 2017. See also AgroNews, “Court tells US EPA to decide to ban chlorpyrifos or not”, 12 June 2015, available at http://news.agropages.com/News/NewsDetail---15068.htm, and AgroNews, “US EPA need more time to decide to ban chlorpyrifos or not”, 8 July 2016, available at http://news.agropages.com/News/NewsDetail---18620.htm, both accessed 15 August 2017.

³⁷ MacBean, supra, note 12, pp 200–201, 1305–1308.

³⁸ Regulation (EC) No 1272/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 December 2008 on classification, labelling and packaging of substances and mixtures, amending and repealing Directives 67/548/EEC and 1999/45/EC, and amending Regulation (EC) No 1907/2006, Annex VI, Table 3.1. OJ 196, 16.8.1967, 1–98. The classification system is explained in this Regulation, Annex I, Part 1, Table 1.1.

³⁹ Supra, note 18.

⁴⁰ Supra, note 18.

⁴¹ Supra, note 24.

⁴² Supra, note 24.

⁴³ Supra, note 24.

⁴⁴ Supra, note 24. Chlorpyrifos is on the Cholinesterase Inhibitor List of Extoxnet, supra, note 19.

⁴⁵ Supra, note 24. For further discussion, see IK Ngirakesau, BLM Sato and AC Collier, “Chlorpyrifos is an endocrine disruptor in the human placenta via effects on steroidogenic and elimination enzymes”, paper presented at Society for Comparative and Integrative Biology, 2013 Annual Meeting, 6 January 2013, available at www.sicb.org/meetings/2013/schedule/abstractdetails.php?id=489, accessed 15 August 2017.

⁴⁶ MacBean, supra, note 12, 317–318.

⁴⁷ MacBean, supra, note 12, 317.

⁴⁸ Including “Aako; Agrochem; Cerexagri; Chizhou Sincerity; Dongu Fine; Drexel; E-tong; Fengshan; Heben; Hegang Heyou; Hunan Haili; Makhteshim-Agan; Nantong Jiangshan; Nippon Kayaku; Sundat; [and] Zhejiang Yongnong”: MacBean, supra, note 12, 317.

⁴⁹ MacBean lists selected products (and manufacturers) as “Cekuzinin (Cequisa), Dianozyl (Agriphar), Diazate (Mobebco), Diazin (Chemia), Diazol (AgroSan, Makhteshin-Agan=m Laidan (Lainco), Sabion (Sundat), Vibasu (Vipesco) and Zak (Kemio)”: MacBean, supra, note 12, 318.

⁵⁰ See www.alibaba.com/countrysearch/CN/diazinon.html, accessed 15 August 2017.

⁵¹ MacBean, supra, note 12, 318.

⁵² MacBean, supra, note 12, 317, 1307–1308 [quotation from 1308].

⁵³ MacBean, supra, note 12, 317.

⁵⁴ Supra, note 18.

⁵⁵ PAN Pesticide Database – Chemicals, www.pesticideinfo.org/Detail_Chemical.jsp?Rec_Id=PC35079.

⁵⁶ Supra, note 55.

⁵⁷ International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), Some Organophosphate Pesticides and Herbicides: Diazinon, IARC Monographs on the Evaluation of Carcinogenic Risks to Humans, Volume 112, 2017, available at http://monographs.iarc.fr/ENG/Monographs/vol112/mono112-09.pdf, accessed 15 August 2017. See also Thèves, Julien and Dussère, Chloé, “Environnement: Pesticides: Attention cancer!” (2015) 367 Vivre, Magazine de la Ligue contre le Cancer 28–31 .

⁵⁸ Supra, note 55.

⁵⁹ Extoxnet, supra, note 19.

⁶⁰ Supra, note 55.

⁶¹ Supra, note 55. For details on this classification, see PAN Pesticide Database – Chemicals, www.pesticideinfo.org/Docs/ref_toxicity4.html#ReproDevelopmental, accessed 15 August 2017.

⁶² Supra, note 55.

⁶³ MacBean, supra, note 12, 369–371.

⁶⁴ MacBean, supra, note 12, 369.

⁶⁵ “Agrochem; Cheminova; Chizhou Sincerity; Drexel; Hubei Sanonda; Hunan Haili; Lucavia; Mico; Nortox; Rallis; Sannong; Sanonda Zhenzhou; Sundat; Tenglong; United Phosphorus; [and] Zhejiang Huaxing”: MacBean, supra, note 12, 370.

⁶⁶ Selected products included: “Alkedo” (Kemio); “DBi 58” (BASF); “Danadim” (Cheminova); “Devigon” (Devidayal); “Diadhan” (Dhanuka); “Dimethate” (Mobedco); “Dimezyl” (Agriphar); “Efdacon” (Efthymiadis); “Hermootrox” (Hermoo); “Kilgor” (Baocheng); “Laiton” (Lainco); “Perfekthion” (BASF); “Robgor” (Ramcides); “Rogor” (Agricultura Nacional, Cheminova); “Romethoate” (Rotam); “Stinger” (Sundat); “Tara 909” (United Phosphorus); “Teeka” (Nagarjuna Agrichem); [and] “Vidithoate” (Vipesco)”: MacBean, supra, note 12, 370.

⁶⁷ Aliaba.com, “Suppliers: Dimethoate”, available at www.alibaba.com/trade/search?fsb=y&IndexArea=company_en&CatId=&SearchText=dimethoate+, accessed 8 February 2017.

⁶⁸ MacBean, supra, note 12, 370.

⁶⁹ Ibid.

⁷⁰ Ibid.

⁷¹ Ibid.

⁷² MacBean, supra, note 12, 371.

⁷³ Supra, note 18.

⁷⁴ PAN Pesticide Database – Chemicals, www.pesticideinfo.org/Detail_Chemical.jsp?Rec_Id=PC33349.

⁷⁵ Supra, note 74.

⁷⁶ Supra, note 74.

⁷⁷ MacBean, supra, note 12, 369; Extoxnet, supra, note 19.

⁷⁸ Supra, note 74.

⁷⁹ Supra, note 74.

⁸⁰ Supra, note 74.

⁸¹ PAN Pesticide Database – Chemicals, www.pesticideinfo.org/Docs/ref_toxicity5.html#EU. On endocrine disruptors, see Wikipedia, “Endocrine disruptor”, supra, note 23.

⁸² See MacBean, supra, note 12, 748–749.

⁸³ The principal manufacturers as of 2012 were “Syngenta; Fertiagro; Hansen Biologic; Hakhteshim-Agan; Sega; Sharda; Sundat; Tide; Zhejiang Yongnong”: MacBean, supra, note 12, 748.

⁸⁴ Methidathion was the active ingredient in products such as ““Sunmeda” (Sundat); Supracide” (Gowan, Syngenta); Supradate” (Mobedco); “Suprathion” (Makhteshim-Agari); “Suspect” (Baocheng); “Ultracide” (Syngenta); [and] “Ultracidin” (Vapco)”: MacBean, supra, note 12, 749.

⁸⁵ Made-in-China.com, “Products, Insecticide: Methidathion”, www.made-in-china.com/companysearch.do?subaction=hunt&mode=and&code=0&style=b&isOpenCorrection=1word=Methidathion&comProvice=nolimit, accessed 3 September 2017.

⁸⁶ Alibaba.com, “Suppliers: Methidathion”, www.alibaba.com/trade/search?indexArea=company_en&keyword=methidathion, accessed 15 August 2017.

⁸⁷ MacBean, supra, note 12, 749.

⁸⁸ MacBean, supra, note 12, 749.

⁸⁹ PAN Pesticide Database – Chemicals, www.pesticideinfo.org/Detail_Chemical.jsp?Rec_Id=PC32869. On WHO hazard ranking, see www.pesticideinfo.org/Docs/ref_toxicity2.html#WHOHazardRanking.

⁹⁰ Supra, note 89. On US EPA rating, see www.pesticideinfo.org/Docs/ref_toxicity2.html#EPACategory.

⁹¹ MacBean, supra, note 12, 749, 1307–1308.

⁹² MacBean, supra, note 12, 749.

⁹³ Supra, note 18. Note that “PAN Bad Actors are chemicals that are one or more of the following: highly acutely toxic, cholinesterase inhibitor, known/probable carcinogen, known groundwater pollutant or known reproductive or developmental toxicant. NOTE! Because there are no authoritative lists of Endocrine Disrupting (ED) chemicals, EDs are not yet considered PAN Bad Actor chemicals”: supra, note 74.

⁹⁴ Supra, note 89.

⁹⁵ Extoxnet, supra, note 19.

⁹⁶ Supra, note 89. This category means “The data show limited evidence of carcinogenicity in the absence of human data”: www.pesticideinfo.org/Docs/ref_toxicity3.html#EPACancer.

⁹⁷ Supra, note 89.

⁹⁸ MacBean, supra, note 12, 826–827.

⁹⁹ MacBean, supra, note 12, 826.

¹⁰⁰ Arysta Life Science France, “L’actualité du groupe: Arysta rachétée par Platform Specialty Products Corporation”, Dublin, 17 February 2015, www.arystalifescience.fr/actualites/l-actualite-du-groupe/14-2015/2-arysta-lifescience-rachete-par-platform-specialty-products-corporation, accessed 15 August 2017. On Platform Specialty Products, see its website at www.platformspecialtyproducts.com/, accessed 15 August 2017.

¹⁰¹ Made-in-China.com, “Suppliers: Omethoate”, www.made-in-china.com/manufacturers/omethoate.html, accessed 15 August 2017.

¹⁰² MacBean, supra, note 12, 826.

¹⁰³ MacBean, supra, note 12, 827, 1305–1308.

¹⁰⁴ MacBean, supra, note 12, 827.

¹⁰⁵ PAN Pesticide Database – Chemicals, www.pesticideinfo.org/Detail_Chemical.jsp?Rec_Id=PC33332.

¹⁰⁶ PAN Pesticide Database – Chemicals, www.pesticideinfo.org/Detail_Chemical.jsp?Rec_Id=PC30.

¹⁰⁷ See www.pesticideinfo.org/Docs/ref_toxicity2.html#PANSelectedAcute.

¹⁰⁸ Supra, note 106. On cholinesterase inhibitors, see www.pesticideinfo.org/Docs/ref_toxicity6.html#CholinesteraseInhibitors.

¹⁰⁹ Extoxnet, supra, note 19.

¹¹⁰ Supra, note 106; CK EU List.

¹¹¹ See MacBean, supra, note 12, 886–887.

¹¹² MacBean, supra, note 12, 886.

¹¹³ The main manufacturers were General Quimica and Xianlong. MacBean lists as the following as selected products and manufacturers: “Barco” (Gowan), “Fosdan” (General Quimica); “Imidan” (Gowan); “Inovitan” (Efthymiadis); “Prolate” (Gowan): MacBean, supra, note 12, 886.

¹¹⁴ Alibaba.com, “Products: Phosmet”, at www.alibaba.com/countrysearch/CN/phosmet.html, accessed 15 August 2017.

¹¹⁵ MacBean, supra, note 12, 886.

¹¹⁶ MacBean, supra, note 12, 887.

¹¹⁷ MacBean, supra, note 12, 887, 1305–1308.

¹¹⁸ This category means “Suggestive evidence of carcinogenicity, but not sufficient to assess human carcinogenic potential: This descriptor is appropriate when the evidence from human or animal data is suggestive of carcinogenicity, which raises a concern for carcinogenic effects, but is judged not sufficient for a conclusion as to human carcinogenic potential. Examples of such evidence may include; a marginal increase in tumors that may be exposure-related, or evidence is observed only in a single study, or the only evidence is limited to certain high background tumors in one sex of one species. Dose-response assessment is not indicated for these agents. Further studies would be needed to determine human carcinogenic potential”: www.pesticideinfo.org/Docs/ref_toxicity3.html#EPACancer, accessed 15 August 2017.

¹¹⁹ Supra, note 18.

¹²⁰ Supra, note 105.

¹²¹ Supra, note 105.

¹²² Extoxnet, supra, note 19.

¹²³ Supra, note 105.

¹²⁴ MacBean, supra, note 12, 887.

¹²⁵ MacBean, supra, note 12, 887–889.

¹²⁶ MacBean, supra, note 12, 888.

¹²⁷ “Aimco; Hui Kwang; India Pesticides; Pilarquim; Sharda; Sudarshan; [and] United Phosphorus”: MacBean, supra, note 12, 888.

¹²⁸ Selected products (and manufacturers) included “Don? (Daavidayal); “Kinadon” (United Phosphorous); “Mashidon” (Crop Health); “Midon” (Nagarjuna Agrichem); [and] Phosron” (Hui Kwang): MacBean, supra, note 12, 888.

¹²⁹ ChemNet, “China Phosphamidon Suppliers, China Phosphamidon Manufacturers”, at www.chemnet.com/Suppliers/3900/Phosphamidon--160849.html, accessed 15 August 2017.

¹³⁰ Chemical Register, The Online Chemical Buyer’s Guide, “Phosphamidon (CAS No. 13171-21-6) Suppliers (China)”, available at www.chemicalregister.com/Phosphamidon/Suppliers/pid10871.htm, accessed 15 August 2017.

¹³¹ MacBean, supra, note 12, 888.

¹³² MacBean, supra, note 12, 888; PAN Pesticide Database – Chemicals, www.pesticideinfo.org/Docs/ref_toxicity2.html#WHOHazardRanking, accessed 15 August 2017.

¹³³ MacBean, supra, note 12, 888.

¹³⁴ MacBean, supra, note 12, 888, 1307–1308.

¹³⁵ MacBean, supra, note 12, 888.

¹³⁶ Supra, note 18.

¹³⁷ PAN Pesticide Database – Chemicals, www.pesticideinfo.org/Detail_Chemical.jsp?Rec_Id=PC35125.

¹³⁸ Supra, note 137.

¹³⁹ Supra, note 137.

¹⁴⁰ Extoxnet, supra, note 19.

¹⁴¹ Supra, note 137.

¹⁴² Supra, note 137.

¹⁴³ MacBean, supra, note 12, 105–106.

¹⁴⁴ MacBean, supra, note 12, 105.

¹⁴⁵ “FMC; Amvac; Chunjiang; Fertiagro; Jiansu Ruidong; Jiangsu Yangnong; JIE; Ningbo Finechem; Sundat”: MacBean, supra, note 12, 105.

¹⁴⁶ Selected products included: “Milord” (Cequisa); “Sun-bif” (Sundat); “Talstar” (FMC); “Wudang” (Rocca), Selected mixtures: “SmartChoice” (Amvac): MacBean, supra, note 12, 105–106.

¹⁴⁷ Alibaba.com, “Suppliers: Pesticide: Insecticide: Bifenthrin”, available at www.alibaba.com/trade/search?fsb=y&IndexArea=company_en&CatId=&SearchText=pesticide+insecticide+bifenthrin&isGalleryList=G, accessed 15 August 2017.

¹⁴⁸ Made-in-China.com, “Supplier discovery: Suppliers: Bifenthrin”, available at www.made-in-china.com/manufacturers/bifenthrin.html, accessed 15 August 2017.

¹⁴⁹ MacBean, supra, note 12, 106.

¹⁵⁰ MacBean, supra, note 12, 106, 1305–1308 [quotations from 1307–1308].

¹⁵¹ MacBean, supra, note 12, 106.

¹⁵² Supra, note 18.

¹⁵³ PAN Pesticide Database, www.pesticideinfo.org/Detail_Chemical.jsp?Rec_Id=PC32863.

¹⁵⁴ Supra, note 153. “The data show limited evidence of carcinogenicity in the absence of human data”: www.pesticideinfo.org/Docs/ref_toxicity3.html#EPACancer, accessed 15 August 2017.

¹⁵⁵ Supra, note 153.

¹⁵⁶ Supra, note 153.

¹⁵⁷ MacBean, supra, note 12, 106.

¹⁵⁸ John Krohnfeldt, “Top 5 pesticide companies in the world (SYT, DOW)”, Investopedia, 25 August 2016, www.investopedia.com/articles/markets-economy/082516/top-5-pesticide-companies-world-syt-dow.asp, accessed 15 August 2017.

¹⁵⁹ AgroNews, “Top global agrochemicals firms: rise of Chinese firms”, Grace Yuan, available at http://news.agropages.com/News/NewsDetail---13350.htm, accessed 15 August 2017. See also GMWatch, “The world’s top 10 pesticide firms”, 31 January 2009, available at www.gmwatch.org/latest-listing/1-test/10560-the-worlds-top-10-pesticide-firms-who-owns-nature, accessed 15 August 2017.

¹⁶⁰ See Syngenta, “A transaction in the interests of all stakeholders: The last information and updates”, available at www.syngenta-growth.com/en/home/, accessed 15 August 2017.

¹⁶¹ European Commission Competition Cases, M.7962 ChemChina/Syngenta, at http://ec.europa.eu/competition/elojade/isef/case_details.cfm?proc_code=2_M_7962, accessed 20 May 2017; European Commission, Press Release, “Mergers: Commission clears ChemChina acquisition of Syngenta, subject to conditions”, European Commission Press Release Database, 5 April 2017, at http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-17-882_en.htm, last accessed 20 May 2017.

¹⁶² AgroNews, “12 pesticides export value exceeded US 100 million in China in 2012”, available at http://news.agropages.com/News/NewsDetail---9820.htm, accessed 6 February 2017.

¹⁶³ United Nations, FAO Corporate Document Depository, available at www.fao.org/docrep/008/af340e/af340e08.htm, accessed 10 January 2017.

¹⁶⁴ OECD Reviews of Innovation Policy: China, supra, note 164, 541.

¹⁶⁵ On market exit as a problem, see Zheng, Wentong, “State Capitalism and the Regulation of Competition in China”, in Michael W Dowdle, John Gillespie and Imelda Maher (eds), Asian Capitalism and the Regulation of Competition: Towards a Regulatory Geography of Global Competition Law (Cambridge University Press, 2013) 144–163 .

¹⁶⁶ Agrow World Crop Protection News, “Annual Review”, January 2016, p 15, available at www.agra-net.com/agra/agrow/supplements-reports/supplements/article505168.ece/BINARY/AGROW-2015-Annual+Review-Supplement.pdf, accessed 2 March 2017.

¹⁶⁷ The 13th Five-Year for Economic and Social Development of the People’s Republic of China, 2016-2020, translated by Translation and Compilation Bureau, Central Committee of the Communist Party of the People’s Republic of China, Central Compilation & Translation Press, Beijing, nd [2015], Part IV, Chapter 18, Sections 4 and 5 [no pagination], available at http://en.ndrc.gov.cn/newsrelease/201612/P020161207645765233498.pdf, accessed 15 August 2017.

¹⁶⁸ See www.alibaba.com, accessed 20 May 2017. The Alibaba Group is described by Wikipedia as “the world’s largest retailer… with operations in over 200 countries, as well as one of the largest Internet companies”: Wikipedia, “Alibaba”, at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alibaba_Group, accessed 15 August 2017.

¹⁶⁹ www.made-in-china.com, accessed 15 August 2017.

¹⁷⁰ www.chemnet.com, accessed 15 August 2017.

¹⁷¹ www.chembuyersguide.com/chemical-suppliers/china.html, accessed 15 August 2017.

¹⁷² http://news.agropages.com, accessed 15 August 2017.

¹⁷³ ChemLinked by REACH24H Consulting Group, at https://chemlinked.com/, accessed 15 August 2017. This database is available by subscription only.

¹⁷⁴ United Nations, FAO Corporate Document Depository, available at www.fao.org/docrep/008/af340e/af340e08.htm, accessed 15 August 2017; OECD Reviews of Innovation Policy: China, supra, note 164, 541.

¹⁷⁵ Statistical Communique on the Second National Agricultural Census (No 1), National Bureau of Statistics of People’s Republic of China. Available at www.stats.gov.cn/tjsj/tjgb/nypcgb/qgnypcgb/200802/t20080221_30461.html, last consulted 12 February 2017. The census began on 31 December 2006 and information was updated on 21 February 2008.

¹⁷⁶ Wang, Yongqiang et al, “Why some restricted pesticides are still chosen by some farmers in China ? Empirical evidence from a survey of vegetable and apple growers” (2015) 51 Food Control 417–424 at 418.

¹⁷⁷ See eg Wentong Zheng, “State Capitalism and the Regulation of Competition in China” in Dowdle, Gillespie and Maher (eds), supra, note 165, 144–163.

¹⁷⁸ See Snyder, Francis, Food Safety Law in China: Making Transnational Law (EJ Brill for the Xiamen Academy of International Law, 2016).

¹⁷⁹ American Insect Control Delegation, Insect Control in the People’s Republic of China: A Trip Report of the American Insect Control Delegation, submitted to the Committee on Scholarly Communication with the People’s Republic of China (National Academy of Sciences 1977) 64, 75–77 (quotation is from 64). The visit followed a 1973 visit to the United States by a scientific delegation sent by the Scientific and Technical Association of the People’s Republic of China (ibid at iii). BHC seems to refer to lindane: see Wikipedia, “Lindane”, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindane, accessed 15 August 2017.

¹⁸⁰ Insect Control in the People’s Republic of China: A Trip Report of the American Insect Control Delegation, supra, note 179, 141–150. The 1975 US delegation remarked (at 142) that “Clearly, the Chinese have progressed beyond levels attained in the United States both in widespread enthusiasm for integrated control and, in many respects, in the application of the ecological principles fundamental to its development”. The quotation is also from 142.

¹⁸¹ Insect Control in the People’s Republic of China: A Trip Report of the American Insect Control Delegation, supra, note 179, 142: “The value of insecticides in crop production is recognized throughout China; indeed, most of their serious pests are primarily controlled with chemicals. Many of the problems associated with heavy dependence on insecticides so familiar to use in the United States are becoming increasingly apparent in China”.

¹⁸² Jikun Huang et al, “Farm Pesticides, Rice Production, and Human Health in China”, EEPSEA Research Report No 2001-RR3 (Economy and Environment Program for Southeast Asia 2001) 37, which (at 2–3) describes itself as “the first attempt to quantify the impacts of pesticide use on agricultural production and farmers’ health in a major grain production region in China”.

¹⁸³ Zhou, Jiehong and Jin, Shaosheng, Food Safety Management in China: A Perspective from Food Quality Control System (Zhejiang University Press, 2013) 33–46 . See also Zhou, Jiehong and Jin, Shaosheng, “Safety of Vegetables and the Use of Pesticides by Farmers in China: Evidence from Zhejiang Province” (2009) 20 Food Control 1043–1048 .

¹⁸⁴ Cornelius van der Meer, et al, “China’s Compliance with Food Safety Requirements for Fruit and Vegetables: Promoting Food Safety, Competitiveness and Poverty Reduction” (World Bank) 2, available at http://s3.amazonaws.com/zanran_storage/www.worldbank.org.cn/ContentPages/43434457.pdf, accessed 15 August 2017.

¹⁸⁵ Sun, Bo et al, “Agricultural Non-Point Source Pollution in China: Causes and Mitigation Measures” (2012) 41(4) Ambio 370–379 .

¹⁸⁶ Shi, Y et al, “Residues of Organic Chlorinated Pesticides in Agricultural Soils of Beijing, China” (2005) 49 Archives of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology 37 .

¹⁸⁷ See Jia, Hongliang, et al, “Endosulfan in China 1–Gridded Use Inventories” (2009) 16 Environmental Science and Pollution Research 295–301 .

¹⁸⁸ Zhang, Anping et al, “Residues of Currently and Never Used Organochlorine Pesticides in Agricultural Soils from Zhejiang Province, China” (2012) 60 Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry [Publication of the American Chemical Society] 2982–2988 (quotation from 2984).

¹⁸⁹ UNDP in China, “Endosulfan – Phasing-Out in China, UNDP Research and Publications, available at www.cn.undp.org/content/china/en/home/library/environment_energy/issue-brief--endosulfan-phasing-out-in-china.html, accessed 15 August 2017. The trade website Made-in-China.com currently lists 13 endosulfan manufacturers and suppliers with 39 products in China: Made-in-China.com, “Suppliers: endosulfan”, available at www.made-in-china.com/manufacturers/endosulfan.html, accessed 15 August 2017.

¹⁹⁰ van der Meer, supra, note 184, 31. Methamidofos (methamidophos) is a highly toxic pesticide that is widely used in rice cultivation and rice-fish agriculture in China and southeast Asia. It is a cholinesterase inhibitor: see Wikipedia, “Methamidophos”, available at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methamidophos, accessed 20 February 2017. See also Qiao, F et al, “Pesticide Use and Farmers’ Health in China’s Rice Production” (2012) 4(4) China Agricultural Economic Review 468–494 .

¹⁹¹ Hu, Ruifa et al, “Long- and Short-Term Health Effects of Pesticide Exposure: A Cohort Study from China” (2015) 10, June 4 PLoS ONE pp 1–13; doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0128766.t004 . The first quotation is from p 7, and the second from p 10. The types of pesticides are mentioned at pp 4 and 11. Note that only 14 per cent of sampled farmers wore masks and/or gloves. See also Li, Yifan et al, “Neurological Effects of Pesticide Use among Farmers in China” (2014) 11(4) International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 3995–4008 , available at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4025041/pdf/ijerph-11-03995.pdf, accessed 15 August 2017; Zhang, H et al, “Pesticide Poisoning and Neurobehavioral Function among Farm Workers in Jiangsu, People’s Republic of China” (2016) 74 Cortex 396–404 , available at www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26475098, accessed 15 August 2017.

¹⁹² Bai, Y, Zhou, L and Li, J, “Organochlorine Pesticide(HCH and DDT) Residues in Dietary Products from Shaanxi Province, People’s Republic of China” (2016) 16 Bulletin of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology 422 (quotation from 425).

¹⁹³ Chu, Xiao-Gang, Hu, Xiao-Zhong and Yao, Hui-Yuan, “Determination of 266 Pesticide Residues in Apple Juice by Matrix Solid-Phase Dispersion and Gas Chromatography – Mass Selective Detection” (2005) 1063 Journal of Chromatography A 201 at 209.

¹⁹⁴ Chen, Chen et al, “Evaluation of pesticide residues in fruit and vegetables from Xiamen, China” (2011) 22(7) Food Control 1114–1120 .

¹⁹⁵ Li Lixin et al, “避暑山莊及周圍寺廟景區園林園藝處; 河北農業大學” [“Analysis of Pesticide Residues in Apples of Hebei Province”] 河北省林果桑花質量監督檢驗中心; 河北林果研究 [Heibei Journal of Forestry and Orchard Research], editorial mailbox (2 July 2016), available at http://cnki.sris.com.tw/kcms/detail/detail.aspx?dbcode=cjfd&dbname=cjfdtotal&filename=HBLY201602011, accessed 3 September 2017.

¹⁹⁶ Wu, Linhai and Zhu, Dian, Food Safety in China: A Comprehensive Review (CRC Press, 2015) 22 .

¹⁹⁷ Wang, Shumei et al, “Pesticide Residues in Market Foods in Shaanxi Province of China in 2010” (2013) 138(2–3) Food Chemistry 2016–2025 .

¹⁹⁸ Gao, Xishan et al, “Developing a novel sensitive visual screening card for rapid detection of pesticide residues in food” (2013) 30 Food Control 15–23 at 23. On trace analysis of carbamate pesticides in apples, see also Zhang, Shuaihui et al, “Application of dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction combined with sweeping micellar electrokinestic chromatography for trace analysis of six carbamate pesticides in apples” (2010) 2 Analytical Methods [Journal of the Royal Society of Chemistry] 54–64 , available at www.rsc.org/methods, accessed 15 August 2017.

¹⁹⁹ Zhou and Jin (2013), supra, note 183, 34. For an example of the problems of eliminating food poisoning by toxic pesticides, see Roberts, Darren M et al, “Influence of pesticide regulation on acute poisoning deaths in Sri Lanka” (2003) 81 Bulletin of the World Health Organization 11 , available at www.scielosp.org/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0042-96862003001100005, accessed 15 August 2017. Based mainly on hospital records, this study concerns only intentional self-poisoning, not occupational poisoning, so it is not directly relevant here. However, it shows that if highly toxic pesticides such as methamidiphos and omethoate are not available due to tighter regulation, farmers switched to endosulfan, and when that was banned, to less toxic but still dangerous pesticides.

²⁰⁰ Chen, C, Yang, J and Findlay, C, “Measuring Effect of Food Safety Standards on China’s Agricultural Exports” (2008) 144 Review of World Economics 83–106 . See also Calvin, Linda et al, “Food Safety Improvements Underway in China” (2006) Amber Waves 4 , 5, [USDA Economic Research Service] np, available at www.ers.usda.gov/amberwaves, accessed 15 August 2015.

²⁰¹ Calculated by Ni Lili from US Food and Drug Administration, “Import Refusal Reports for OASIS”, available at www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/importrefusals/, accessed 15 August 2017.

²⁰² European Commission, RASFF Portal, available at https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/rasff-window/portal/?event=searchResultList, accessed 15 August 2017.

²⁰³ Supra, note 202. Chlorfenapyr is a moderately hazardous pesticide which is regarded as a possible carcinogen. Agricultural use is banned in the EU for environmental reasons [but permitted for use as a wood preservative] and in the US [permitted from greenhouse use]. See MacBean, supra, note 12, 888; PAN Pesticide Database – Chemicals, “Chlorpenafyr”, available at www.pesticideinfo.org/Detail_Chemical.jsp?Rec_Id=PC35810, accessed 15 August 2017; David Lunn, Dugald MacLachlan and Weili Shan, “Chlorfenapyr (254), first draft prepared for the FAO CCPR” [Codex Committee on Pesticide Residues], www.fao.org/fileadmin/templates/agphome/documents/Pests_Pesticides/JMPR/Evaluation12/Chlorfenapyr.pdf, accessed 15 August 2017 [no MRL or ADI recommended]; EU, Final Regulatory Action, “Chlorpenafyr”, http://archive.pic.int/CH/Demo/embed/view_displayFRA.php?id=195, accessed 10 February 2017; Commission Directive 2013/27/EU of 17 May 2013 amending Directive 98/8/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council to include chlorfenapyr as an active substance in Annex I thereto, available at http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2013:135:0010:0013:EN:PDF, accessed 15 August 2017; United States EPA, “Pesticide Fact Sheet: Chlorfenapyr”, available at www3.epa.gov/pesticides/chem_search/reg_actions/registration/fs_PC-129093_01-Jan-01.pdf, accessed 15 August 2017 [greenhouse use only]; Wikipedia, “Chlorfenapyr”, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chlorfenapyr, accessed 15 August 2017.

²⁰⁴ Metcalf, Robert L and Kelman, Arthur, “Integrated Pest Management in China” (1981) 23(4) Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development 6–13 , available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00139157.1981.9933131, accessed 15 August 2017. For the period up to 1975, a useful source is Insect Control in the People’s Republic of China: A Trip Report of the American Insect Control Delegation, supra, note 179.

²⁰⁵ See Snyder, Francis, Zhouke, Hu and Lili, Ni, ““Transnational Law and Pesticide Regulation in China: An Exploration of Legal Pluralism”, forthcoming in Peer Zumbansen (ed), Jessop’s Bold Proposal: Transnational Law After 60 Years (Cambridge University Press, 2017).

²⁰⁶ On regulatory paths, see also Snyder, Francis, Yi, Lu and Yazdani, Gulrez, “Traditional Chinese Medicine and European Union Law” (2014) 2(1) Peking University Law Journal 129–200 .

²⁰⁷ McBeath and McBeath reported in 2010 that “In China, it is widely believed that farmers do not eat the products they produce for the market”: McBeath, Jenifer Huang and McBeath, Jerry, Environmental Change and Food Security in China (Springer, 2010) 155 .

²⁰⁸ See Snyder, Zhouke and Lili, supra, note 205; Francis Snyder and Ni Lili, “Navigating Food Safety Standards in International Law: EU – China Regulatory Cooperation”, work in progress [on file with the authors].

²⁰⁹ For further information on the hierarchy of norms in Chinese law, see Corne, Peter Howard, Foreign Investment in China: The Administrative Legal System (Hong Kong University Press, 1997); Otto, Jan-Michiel et al (eds), Law-Making in the People’s Republic of China (Brill, 2000); Chen, Jienfu, Chinese Law: Context and Transformation (Martinus Nijhoff, 2008).

²¹⁰ The Law of the People’s Republic of China on Quality and Safety of Agricultural Products (中华人民共和国农产品质量安全法, zhong hua ren min gong he guo nong chan pin zhi liang an quan fa), amended and adopted at the 21^st Meeting of the Standing Committee of the Tenth National People’s Congress of the People’s Republic of China on 29 April 2006, with effect as of 1 November 2006, Order of the People’s Republic of China No 49, available at LawinfoChina, accessed 31 March 2017.

²¹¹ Food Safety Law of the People’s Republic of China (中华人民共和国食品安全法》 (2015 Revision) zhong hua ren min gong he guo shi pin an quan fa), revised and adopted at the Fourteenth Session of the Standing Committee of the Twelfth National People’s Congress of the People’s Republic of China on 24 April 2015, coming into force on 1 October 2015 (Order of the President of the People’s Republic of China, No 21). available at pkulaw, accessed 31 March 2017.

²¹² Food Safety Law of the People’s Republic of China (2009, Revised) (中华人民共和国食品安全法》(2009)zhong hua ren min gong he guo shi pin an quan fa), available at pkulaw, accessed 31 March 2017.

²¹³ Chinese laws, regulations or other measures do not define “highly toxic pesticides”. For the international working definition of “highly hazardous pesticides” (HHPs), see Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, “AGP – Highly Hazardous Pesticides (HHPs), available at www.fao.org/agriculture/crops/thematic-sitemap/theme/pests/code/hhp/en/, accessed 1 December 2016. As agreed by the FAO/WHO Joint Meeting on Pesticide Management (JMPM), HHPs include “Pesticide formulations that meet the criteria of classes Ia or Ib of the WHO Recommended Classification of Pesticides by Hazard; or Pesticide active ingredients and their formulations that meet the criteria of carcinogenicity Categories 1A and 1B of the Globally Harmonized System on Classification and Labelling of Chemicals (GHS); or Pesticide active ingredients and their formulations that meet the criteria of mutagenicity Categories 1A and 1B of the Globally Harmonized System on Classification and Labelling of Chemicals (GHS); or Pesticide active ingredients and their formulations that meet the criteria of reproductive toxicity Categories 1A and 1B of the Globally Harmonized System on Classification and Labelling of Chemicals (GHS); or Pesticide active ingredients listed by the Stockholm Convention in its Annexes A and B, and those meeting all the criteria in paragraph 1 of annex D of the Convention; or Pesticide active ingredients and formulations listed by the Rotterdam Convention in its Annex III; or Pesticides listed under the Montreal Protocol; or Pesticide active ingredients and formulations that have shown a high incidence of severe or irreversible adverse effects on human health or the environment”.

²¹⁴ Detention by the public security bureau, in addition to sanctions under other laws and regulations.

²¹⁵ If not criminally punishable: confiscation of illegal income and pesticides, tools, equipment, raw materials; fine of between 50,000 and 100,000 RMB if the value of the goods is less than 10,000 RMB or between ten times and 20 times the value of the goods if the goods are worth 10,000 RMB or more; and, if the circumstances are serious, revocation of permit.

²¹⁶ Regulations on Pesticide Administration (2001 Revision) (Effective) (《农药管理条例》(2001)nong yao guan li tiao li) Order No 326 of the State Council, promulgated by Decree No 216 of the State Council of the People’s Republic of China on 8 May 1997, amended in accordance with the Decision of the State Council on Amending the Regulations on Pesticide Administration on 29 November 2001, amended in 2009 with effect as of 2012, see www.cirs-reach.com/China_Chemical_Regulation/China_Pesticides_Herbicides_Registration.html, but the amendment does not change these articles, available at pkulaw, accessed 31 March 2017.

²¹⁷ Art 2, para 1. See also Food and Agriculture of the United Nations, “Guidelines for Legislation on the Use of Pesticides”(Rome, January 1989) 2, which defines pesticide as “any substance or mixture of substances intended for preventing, destroying or controlling any pest, including vectors of human or animal disease, unwanted species of plants or animals causing harm during or otherwise interfering with the production, processing, storage, transport, or marketing of food, agricultural commodities, wood and wood products, or animal feedstuffs, or which may be administered to animals for the control of insects, arachnids or other pests in or on their bodies. The term includes substances intended for use as a plant growth regulator, defoliant, desiccant, or agent for thinning fruit or preventing the premature fall of fruit, and substances applied to crops either before or after harvest to protect the commodity from deterioration during storage and transport”.

²¹⁸ Regulations on Pesticide Administration (2001 Revision), supra, note 216, Arts 4 (registration required for manufacture, sale, use), 6–11 (registration procedure), available at pkulaw, accessed 31 March 2017; amended 2009 with effect as of 2012, see www.cirs-reach.com/China_Chemical_Regulation/China_Pesticides_Herbicides_Registration.html, but the amendment does not change these articles. See also OECD Reviews of Innovation Policy: China, supra, note 164, 541.

²¹⁹ For a list of laws, standards and specifications related to pesticidal persistant organic pollutants (POPs) in China as of 2009, see Yin Lau, Melody Hoi et al, “Environmental Policy, Legislation and Management of Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) in China” (2012) 165 Environmental Pollution 182–192 at 187, Table 4. For an overview of Chinese law on pesticides as of 8 September 2016, see Lin Fang, “Chinese Pesticide Legislation Overview”, CHEMLINKED by REACH24H Consulting Group, Agrochemical Regulatory News and Database, available at https://agrochemical.chemlinked.com/chempedia/chinese-pesticide-legislation-overview, accessed 5 January 2017.

²²⁰ Measures for the GLP Accreditation of Pesticide Laboratories – MoA Announcement 739 《中华人民共和国农业部公告第 739 号》– 农药良好实验室考核管理办法 (zhong hua ren min gong he guo nong ye bu gong gao di 739 hao- nong yao liang hao shi yan shi kao he guan li ban fa), available at http://english.agri.gov.cn/, accessed 4 April 2017.

²²¹ Measures for the Administration of the Manufacturing of Pesticides, National Development and Reform Commission Order No 23《农药生产管理办法》 (nong yao sheng chan guan li ban fa), available at pkulaw, accessed 31 March 2017.

²²² Rules for Implementing Production License on Pesticide Products 《农药产品生产许可证实施细则》(nong yao chan pin sheng chan zheng xu ke zheng shi shi xi ze); [General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine of the People’s Republic of China].

²²³ Measures for the Management on Residue Testing Facilities for Pesticide Registration 《农药登记残留实验单位认证管理办法》(nong yao deng ji can liu shi yan dan weir en zheng guan li ban fa); available at pkulaw, accessed 4 April 2017.

²²⁴ Data Requirement on Pesticide Administration, issued in 2001 and replaced by Order No. 10 of the Ministry of Agriculture《农药登记资料要求》 (nong yao deng ji zi liao yao qiu), available at pkulaw, accessed 31 March 2017.

²²⁵ Regulation on Pesticide Administration (2001 Revision) [Effective], issued on 29 November 2001 as Order No 326 of the State Council; Measures for Implementing the Regulation on Pesticide Administration, Order No 7 of the Ministry of Agriculture, 2007,《农药管理条例实施办法》 (nong yao guan li tiao li shi shi ban fa) available at pkulaw, accessed 31 March 2017.

²²⁶ Measures for the Management of Pesticide Labels and Manuals, Order No 7 of the Ministry of Agriculture of 2007 《农药标签和说明书管理办法》 (nong yao biao qian he shuo ming shu guan li ban fa), available at pkulaw, accessed 31 March 2017.

²²⁷ Measures for Examination of Pesticide Advertisement, SAIC&MoA Order 30 of 1995, revised by SAIC&MoA Order 88 of 1998《农药广告审查办法》 (nong yao guang gao shen cha ban fa), available at pkulaw, accessed 31 March 2017.

²²⁸ Procedures for Restricting Pesticide Uses, Ministry of Agriculture Order No 17 of 2002 《农药限制使用管理规定》（农业部令 2002 第 17 号）《nong yao xian zhi shi yong guan li gui ding》(nong ye bu ling 2002 di 17 hao), available at http://english.agri.gov.cn/, accessed 4 April 2017.

²²⁹ GB 2763-2016 National food Safety Standard-Maximum Residue Limits for Pesticides in Food.

²³⁰ Measures for Implementing the Regulation on Pesticide Administration(Ministry of Agriculture Order 9 of 2007) 《农药管理条例实施办法》 (nong yao guan li tiao li shi shi ban fa), available at pkulaw, accessed 31 March 2017.

²³¹ See the ICAMA website at www.chinapesticide.gov.cn/ywb/index.jhtml, accessed 15 August 2017.

²³² See “2015 Tianjin explosions”, available at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Tianjin_explosions, accessed 15 August 2017.

²³³ For a summary, see Xiaolu Wang, “China to increase information transparency for hazardous chemical management”, 3E Company website, 20 December 2016, available at http://3ecompany.com/resource-center/blog/china-increase-information-transparency-hazardous-chemical-management, accessed 15 August 2017. On regulation of hazardous chemicals up to then see CIRS, “Hazardous Chemical Management Regulations in China (2016)”, updated to 17 November 2016, available at www.cirs-reach.com/news-and-articles/hazardous-chemical-management-regulations-in-china-2015.html, accessed 15 August 2017.

²³⁴ Chemical Inspection & Regulation Service (CIRS), English Edition of the Guide to Hazardous Chemicals in China (2015) [cf also earlier editions], available from CIRS Shanghai (2002 edition prepared in 2011). The eight pesticides discussed here are not on the CIRS list.

²³⁵ For a summary, see Lin Fang, “China MoA Compiles Plan for Hazardous Pesticides Control”, 6 January 2017, available at https://agrochemical.chemlinked.com/news/news/china-moa-compiles-plan-hazardous-pesticides-control, accessed 15 August 2017.

²³⁶ See Mi Gao, “State Council Passes Draft of Revised Regulations on Pesticide Administration”, ChemLinked, Agrochemical Regulatory News and Database, 10 February 2017, available at https://agrochemical.chemlinked.com/news/news/state-council-passes-draft-revised-regulations-pesticide-administration, accessed 15 August 2017. Under the current Regulations, other administrative departments at or above county level are responsible for pesticide supervision and administration “within their respective functions and responsibilities” (Art 5, para 2). The current Regulations provide sanctions of marketing inferior quality pesticide but do not specify clearly that manufacturer and suppliers bear responsibility for safety and efficiency of pesticides (see Arts 32, 43). On fake pesticides, see Art 43.

²³⁷ See Gao, supra, note 236; and Knoell Germany, “China approved new draft pesticide regulations”, available at www.knoellconsult.com/en/news/china-approved-new-draft-pesticide-regulations, accessed 15 August 2017.

²³⁸ Shaanxi Province Regulations on Pesticide Administration (《陕西省人民政府办公厅关于推进耕地轮作休耕实行化肥农药使用减量化的意见》Shaanxi Ren Min Zheng Fu Ban Gong Ting Guan Yu Tui Jin Geng Di Lun Zuo Xiu Geng Shi Xing Hua Fei Nong Yao Shi Yong Jian Liang Hua Yi Jian, Art 40, available at http://knews.shaanxi.gov.cn/0/sxzb/8963.htm, accessed 26 March 2017.

²³⁹ 《农药登记费》(Xi”an Nong Yao Deng Ji Fei), available at http://www.xa.gov.cn/ptl/def/def/index_1121_6774_ci_trid_1250608.html, accessed 26 March 2017; 《西安市人民政府办公厅关于调整优化种植结构实行化肥农药使用减量化的意见》(Xi’an Ren Min Zheng Fu Ban Gong Ting Guan Yu Tiao Zheng You Hua Zhong Zhi Jie Gou Shi Xing Hua Fei Nong Yao Shi Yong Jian Liang Hua De Yi Jian), available at www.xa.gov.cn/ptl/def/def/index_1121_6774_ci_trid_2118743.html, accessed 26 March 2017.

²⁴⁰ Shandong Regulations on Pesticide Administration/Management (Provincial Order No 121) (《山东农药管理办法》 Shandong Nong Yao Guan Li Ban Fa), available at www.shandong.gov.cn/art/2006/1/8/art_284_180.html, accessed 26 March 2017.

²⁴¹ Shandong Province Agricultural Product Quality Regulation (Order No 277) (《山东省农产品质量安全监督管理规定》 Shandong Nong Chan Pin Zhi Liang An Quan Jian Du Guan Li Gui Ding), available at www.shandong.gov.cn/art/2014/4/15/art_285_5755.html, accessed 26 March 2017.

²⁴² Shandong Pesticide Management in Supervising and Spot-checking Regulation (《山东省农药监督抽查管理办法》 Shandong Nong Yao Jian Du Chou Cha Guan Li Ban Fa), available at www.moa.gov.cn/zwllm/zcfg/dffg/201411/t20141119_4213600.htm, accessed 26 March 2017.

²⁴³ Shandong Registration of Pesticide Selling Administration (《山东省农药经营告知管理办法》 Shandong Nong Yao Jing Ying Gao Zhi Guan Li Ban Fa), available at www.moa.gov.cn/zwllm/zcfg/dffg/201411/t20141119_4213598.htm, accessed 26 March 2017.

²⁴⁴ Shandong Import Agricultural Product Administration (Order No 189) (山东出口农产品质量安全监督管理规定 Shandong Chu Kou Nong Chan Pin Zhi Liang An Quan Jian Du Guan Li Gui Ding), available at www.shandong.gov.cn/art/2006/10/23/art_285_6104.html, accessed 26 March 2017.

²⁴⁵ Volume/List of High-risky Pesticide (高风险农药目录 Gao Feng Xian Nong Yao Mu Lu), available at www.moa.gov.cn/zwllm/zcfg/dffg/201411/t20141119_4213537.htm, accessed 26 March 2017.

²⁴⁶ Shandong Province Note on the Quality Improvement of Plowed Land (2014~2020) (山东省人民政府办公厅关于印发山东省耕地质量提升规划的通知 (2014~2020), Geng Di Zhi Liang Ti Sheng Gui Hua Tong Zhi (2014~2020), available at www.shandong.gov.cn/art/2014/12/23/art_285_6753.html, accessed 26 March 2017.

²⁴⁷ Ministry of Agriculture, Announcement No 1 of 2008, together with four ministries and commissions (8 January 2008), available at www.agropages.com, accessed 15 August 2017.

²⁴⁸ Agronews, “Minister of Agriculture prohibits or restricts the use of high-toxic pesticides”, available at http://news.agropages.com/News/NewsDetail---15472.htm, accessed 15 August 2017.

²⁴⁹ AgroNews, “China conducts risk reviews of acephate, three other pesticide products [including dimethoate]”, available at http://news.agropages.com/News/NewsDetail---15646.htm, accessed 15 August 2017.

²⁵⁰ Pesticide Action Network International, “PAN International Consolidated List of Banned Pesticides, 2nd edn (July 2015), available at http://pan-international.org/pan-international-consolidated-list-of-banned-pesticides/, accessed 15 August 2017.

²⁵¹ Ministry of Agriculture, Announcement No 194 of 22 April 2002 and No 1586 of 15 June 2011 (《中华人民共和国农业部公告第 194 号》zhong hua ren min gong he guo nong ye bu gong gao di 194 hao 《中华人民共和国农业部公告第 1586 号》zhong hua ren min gong he guo nong ye bu gong gao di 1586 hao). As of 10 May 2010, the use of omethoate was banned in the production of cabbages: see Agronews, “Pesticide Banned or Restricted by Chinese Government”, available at http://news.agropages.com/News/NewsDetail---2265.htm, accessed 6 February 2017.

²⁵² AgroNews, “China announces insecticide resistance monitoring results for 13 major insect pests”, http://news.agropages.com/News/NewsDetail---17929.htm, accessed 6 February 2017.

²⁵³ Ministry of Agriculture, Announcement No. 2032 of 9 December 2013 (《中华人民共和国农业部公告第 2032 号》zhong hua ren min gong he guo nong ye bu gong gao di 2032 hao). Source: www.agropages.com, accessed 15 August 2017. On the use of chlorpyrifos, see AgroNews, “China announces insecticide resistance monitoring results for 13 major insect pests”, http://news.agropages.com/News/NewsDetail---17929.htm, accessed 15 August 2017.

²⁵⁴ AgroNews, supra, note 253.

²⁵⁵ AgroNews, “China approved 34 pesticide as [active ingredient] registrations in May”, available at http://news.agropages.com/News/NewsDetail---15084.htm, accessed 15 August 2017.

²⁵⁶ AgroNews, “China to set MRLS on 2,4-D and other pesticides”, available at http://news.agropages.com/News/NewsDetail---4552.htm, accessed 15 August 2017.

²⁵⁷ General Office of Ministry of Agriculture’s Notice on Guidelines on Demonstration Project of Selling High Toxic Pesticides at Fixed Places in 2015 and Guidelines on Demonstration Project of Compensating sale of Low Toxic Pesticides in 2015 农业部办公厅关于印发《2015 年高毒农药定点经营示范项目指导方案》和《2015 年低毒生物农药示范补助试点项目实施指导方案》的通知, available at pkulaw, accessed 8 February 2017.

²⁵⁸ As reported on 23 March 2017, available at http://news.ifeng.com/a/20170323/50823792_0.shtml, accessed 26 March 2016.

²⁵⁹ Calculated from the national standards. GB 2005/2012/2014/2016 is an abbreviation for the National food safety standard-maximum residue limits for pesticides in food (GB2763-2005/2012/2014/2016).

²⁶⁰ This litigation will be examined in Francis Snyder and Hu Zhouke, “Courts as Regulators: Pesticides in the Chinese Courts”, work in progress.

²⁶¹ We are grateful to Hu Zhouke for this information (emails on file with the authors). The pkudata (北大法宝) database classifies and filters cases instead of collecting every judgment throughout China. The openlaw (开放法律联盟) database purports to collect all judgments throughout China.

²⁶² OECD Reviews of Innovation Policy: China, supra, note 164, 545. It is not clear from the OECD review whether this is the total number of cases or only those concerning intellectual property rights

²⁶³ Criminal Law of the People’s Republic of China (97 Revision) [已被修订] 法规标题】中华人民共和国刑法(97 修订) [Revised] (zhong hua ren min gong he guo xing fa); available at pkulaw, enacted 14 March 1997, effective as of 1 October 1997, Art 147, accessed 28 March 2017.

²⁶⁴ Wu and Zhu, supra, note 196, 28–29.

²⁶⁵ China Pesticide Information Network, Institute for the Control of Agrochemicals, Ministry of Agriculture, PR China, “ICAMA investigates carbofuran and carbosulfan in Hunan Province”, available at https://agrochemical.chemlinked.com/news/news/china-icama-initiates-re-assessment-24-d-butylate#sthash.QqUW6RXo.dpbs, accessed 3 September 2017. In July 2015 the National Review Committee of Pesticide Administration recommended the revocation of the registration of carbofuran for use on sugarcane: see China Pesticide Information Network, Institute for the Control of Agrochemicals, Ministry of Agriculture, PR China, “Minutes of the Seventeenth Plenary Meeting of the Eighth National Review Committee of Pesticide Administration, available at www.chinapesticide.gov.cn/zwxw/821.jhtml, accessed 3 September 2017.

²⁶⁶ Wang et al, supra, note 176.

²⁶⁷ Huiqi Yan, “Why Chinese Farmers Obey the Law: Pesticide Compliance in Hunan Province, China” (PhD Thesis, Faculty of Law, University of Amsterdam 2014) 78–81, available at http://hdl.handle.net/11245/1.431998 [UvA-DARE, the institutional repository of the University of Amsterdam (UvA)]. The thesis is expected to be published in August 2017 as Pesticide Law and Compliance Decision-Making: A Study of Chinese Farmers (Springer).

²⁶⁸ 曹涤环，淘汰国家禁用农药品种任重道远，今日农药， 2014 年 7 月，第 15-16 页 (Cao Dihuan, “A long haul for the phase-out of the banned pesticides in China”, The New Century of Agrochem (2014/07) 15–16, available at www.cqvip.com/QK/86834A/201407/661803742.html, accessed 7 February 2017.

²⁶⁹ Supra, note 268. See also Huang, Qiao, Zhang, Rozelle, supra note 4. Even today, Made-in-China.com lists four suppliers for chlordimeform: see Made-in-China.com, available at www.made-in-china.com/companysearch.do?word=chlordimeform&subaction=hunt&style=b&mode=and&code=0&comProvince=nolimit&order=0&isOpenCorrection=1, accessed 15 August 2017; pin yin version: tao tai guo jia jin yong nong yao pin zhong ren zhong dao yuan.

²⁷⁰ Regulations on Pesticide Administration (2001 Revision), supra, note 216, Arts 40, 43, available at pkulaw, accessed 28 March 2017.

²⁷¹ Pesticide Action Network International, “PAN International List of Highly Hazardous Pesticides (PAN List of HHPs)”, PAN International, c/o PAN Germany, Hamburg, December 2016, available at http://pan-international.org/wp-content/uploads/PAN_HHP_List.pdf, accessed 15 August 2017.

²⁷² Commission Regulation (EU) No 834/2013 of 30 August 2013 amending Annexes II and III to Regulation (EC) No 396/2005 of the European Parliament and of the Council as regards maximum residue levels for acequinocyl, bixafen, diazinon, difenoconazole, etoxazole, fenhexamid, fludioxonil, isopyrazam, lambda-cyhalothrin, OJEU 31.8.2013 L233/11, available at http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=CELEX:32013R0834, accessed 15 August 2017.

²⁷³ National food safety standard – Maximum residue limits for pesticides in food (GB 2763-2016) GB 2763-2016 食品安全国家标准食品中农药最大残留量》; GB 2763-2016 (shi pin an quan guo jia biao zhun shi pin zhong nong yao zui da can liu liang).

²⁷⁴ USDA, Foreign Agricultural Service, Global Agricultural Information Network, “Russia – New Russian MRLS for Pesticides in Agricultural and Food Products”, GAIN Report RS1401, 10 January 2014, available at http://gain.fas.usda.gov/Recent%20GAIN%20Publications/New%20Russian%20MRLs%20for%20Pesticides%20in%20Agricultural%20and%20Food%20Products_Moscow_Russian%20Federation_1-10-2014.pdf, accessed 15 August 2017.

²⁷⁵ § 180.442 available at www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx?SID=c14d8f5a3b4ecbe7d9fbe57348bd6938&mc=true&node=se40.26.180_1442&rgn=div8 but the MRL will expire on 31 December 2018.

²⁷⁶ Supra, note 273.

²⁷⁷ Commission Regulation (EU) No 310/2011 of 28 March 2011 amending Annexes II and III to Regulation (EC) No 396/2005 of the European Parliament and of the Council as regards maximum residue levels for aldicarb, bromopropylate, chlorfenvinphos, endosulfan, EPTC, ethion, fenthion, fomesafen, methabenzthiazuron, methidathion, simazine, tetradifon and triforine in or on certain products, OJEU 1.4.2011 L86/1, available at http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2011:086:0001:0050:EN:PDF, accessed 15 August 2017.

²⁷⁸ Supra, note 274.

²⁷⁹ § 180.298 available at www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx?SID=c14d8f5a3b4ecbe7d9fbe57348bd6938&mc=true&node=se40.26.180_1298&rgn=div8 but the tolerance expired on 31 December 2016.

²⁸⁰ Supra, note 274.

²⁸¹ No MRL is established, hence the agricultural use of the product is not permitted: Fortin, Neal D, Food Regulation: Law, Science, Policy and Practice, 2nd edn (Wiley, 2017) 173 .

²⁸² Supra, note 273.

²⁸³ Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) No 540/2011of 25 May 2011 implementing Regulation (EC) No 1107/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council as regards the list of approved active substances, OJEU 11.6.2011 L153/1, available at http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2011:153:0001:0186:EN:PDF, accessed 15 August 2017.

²⁸⁴ See eg Ministry of Agriculture of the People’s Republic of China, Information Office, “National Food Safety Standard Maximum Residue Limits for Pesticides in Food”, the new release of the pesticide residue limits increased to 4140”, 28 December 2016, available at www.moa.gov.cn/zwllm/zwdt/201612/t20161228_5419643.htm, accessed 15 August 2017; supra, note 273.

²⁸⁵ Fortunately, the gap in communication and understanding between scientists and regulators has narrowed dramatically since 1975, when an American delegation could gain the impression that “[t]he understanding of our scientific colleagues in China about [governmental regulation of pesticides] was evidently roughly equivalent to U.S. scientists’ “understanding of the complexities of our FDA [Food and Drug Administration] and EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] processes”: Insect Control in the People’s Republic of China: A Trip Report of the American Insect Control Delegation, supra, note 179, 88.

²⁸⁶ See also Corne, supra, note 209, and Benjamin van Rooij, Rachel E Stern and Kathinka Fürst, “The Authoritarian Logic of Regulatory Pluralism: Understanding China’s New Environmental Actors”, Legal Studies Research Paper Series No 2014-26 (School of Law, University of California Irvine), available at www.law.berkeley.edu/php-programs/faculty/facultyPubsPDF.php?facID=15878&pubID=14, accessed 9 March 2017. On implementation of environmental law and recommendations for improvement as of 2006, see Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, Environmental Compliance and Enforcement in China: An Assessment of Current Practices and Ways Forward (OECD, 2006).

²⁸⁷ Smith, LED and Siciliano, G, “A Comprehensive Review of Constraints to Improved Management of Fertilizers in China and Mitigation of Diffuse Water Pollution from Agriculture” (2015) 209 Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 15–25 at 18.

²⁸⁸ Decision of the State Council about Further Strengthening Food Safety, issue on 9 January 2004, effective date 9 January 2004 (No 23 [2004] of the State Council), CLI2.55522 (EN), Chinalawinfo, Section 3, “Several Significant Measures”.

²⁸⁹ See the discussion in Snyder, supra, note 178, 65–78.

²⁹⁰ OECD Reviews of Innovation Policy: China, supra, note 164, 545.

²⁹¹ See Smith and Siciliano, supra, note 287; Patten, supra, note 4.

²⁹² Corne, supra, note 209, 284.

²⁹³ See Gao, supra, note 236.

²⁹⁴ See Heilman, Sebatian, Perry, Elizabeth J and Thornton, Patricia M (eds), Mao’s Invisible Hand: The Political Foundations of Adaptive Governance in China, Harvard University Asia Center, Cambridge MA, 2011 .

²⁹⁵ We are grateful to our colleague Hu Zhouke for this information.

²⁹⁶ Wang et al, supra, note 176. See also Yan, supra, note 267, 193–194, 198–199, 205.

²⁹⁷ A very recent study of pesticide use in Guangdong, Jiangxi and Hebei Provinces indicated that less than 14 per cent of 224 farmers in the study took protective measures during spraying: Chao Zhang at al, “Health Effect of Agricultural Pesticide Use in China: Implications for the Development of GM Crops”, Scientific Report, 6, article number: 34918, 2016, available at www.nature.com/articles/srep34918, accessed 15 August 2017. See also Huang, JG et al, “The setting of an occupational exposure limit for phosphamidon in the workplace – a Chinese approach” (1993) 37(1) Annals of Occupational Hygiene 89–99 .

²⁹⁸ See also Wang et al, supra, note 176. For an empirical study of the extent of farmers’ compliance with pesticide regulations, see Yan Huiqi, Benjamin van Rooij and Jeroen van der Heijden, “The Enforcement-Compliance Paradox: Lessons about Matching Regulatory Priorities to Compliance Motivations from Pesticide Regulation in China”, University of California Irvine, School of Law, Legal Studies Research Paper Series No. 2015-24, available at https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2576888, accessed 15 August 2017. The authors argue that pesticide compliance policy often concentrates on rules which are the least likely to be broken and those actors which are most likely to comply with the rules. For the broader theoretical framework of which this work is a part, see Rooij, Benjamin van, Regulating Law and Pollution in China: Lawmaking, Compliance, and Enforcement; Theory and Cases (Leiden University Press, 2006).

²⁹⁹ Attempts to reduce agricultural use of pesticides in France have encountered resistance by large agrochemical companies and farmers, as well as lack of government investment in subsidies for pollution-free agriculture and for basic research to find alternatives to toxic pesticides. See Garric, Audrey and Hir, Pierre Le, “Timide recul de l”usage des pesticides en France”, Le Monde (Paris) (2 February 2017) 11 .

³⁰⁰ On specification of law and normative flexibility in the Chinese legal system, see Corne, supra, note 209, 105, passim.

³⁰¹ On the United States example, see Thomas, In Food We Trust: The Politics of Purity in American Food Regulation, supra, note 2, pp 83–85. On soft law, see Haocai, Luo and Gongde, Song, Soft Law Governance: Towards an Integrated Approach, translated by Ben Armour and Tang Hailong (William S Hein & Co Inc, 2013).

³⁰² The importance of transparency in ensuring food safety is discussed in Arthur PJ Moi, “Governing China’s Food Quality through Transparency: A Review” (2014) 43 Food Control 49–56, available at www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0956713514001030, accessed 15 August 2017, which concluded (at 55) that, as of 2013, “the current transparency architecture in China’s food safety regime is ill-functioning and as such plays only a minor role in providing food quality and safety”. A useful comparator, suggested by Mark Feldman, is the negotiation of increased regulatory transparency in international investment treaties by China today as compared to a decade ago.

³⁰³ See eg Whorton, supra, note 2; Carson, Silent Spring, supra, note 2; Insect Control in the People’s Republic of China: A Trip Report of the American Insect Control Delegation, supra, note 179; MacBean, supra, note 12.

³⁰⁴ Art 23 provides that that relevant government departments “shall, under the principles of ‘scientific, objective, timely, and open’ organize food producers and business operators, food testing agencies, certification agencies, food industry associations, consumers’ associations, and news media, etc to exchange information on food safety risk assessment and the information on food safety supervision and administration in a scientific, objective, timely and open manner”. This is the translation of Westlaw China, which may differ slightly in wording but not in substance as compared to other translations. We borrow the term “society co-governance” from Sun Ying, “From Risk Communication to Society Co-Governance: Ways of Dealing with Crisis in Governmental Administration of Food Safety” (2016) 4(4) China Legal Science 100–117. For empirical support for this policy suggestion, see Yan, supra, note 267, 87–103, 248–250.

³⁰⁵ An indicator of the importance of taking the broader context into account concerns the proposal favouring widespread adoption glyphosate-tolerant genetically modified (GM) crops. The health risks of glyphosate are very controversial, yet China is the world’s largest producer and user. Similar, the health and environmental risks of GM food are very controversial: China is probably the world’s largest producer, and though GM soya beans are imported in large quantities, the sale of China-produced GM food crops is forbidden. For the proposal, see Zhang, et al, supra, note 297. In the EU, the Court of Justice of the European Union recently ruled that “information that relates to emissions into the environment” that must be disclosed by governmental authorities to the public includes plant protection and biocidal products: Case C-673/13 P European Commission v Stichting Greenpeace Nederland and Pesticide Action Network Europe (PAN Europe), Judgment of the Court (Fifth Chamber) of 23 November 2016, available at http://curia.europa.eu/juris/celex.jsf?celex=62013CJ0673&lang1=en&type=TXT&ancre=, and Case C-442/14 Bayer CropScience SA-NV, Stichting De Bijenstichting v College voor de toelating van gewasbeschermingsmiddelen en biociden, Judgment of the Court (Fifth Chamber) of 23 November 2016, available at http://curia.europa.eu/juris/celex.jsf?celex=62013CJ0673&lang1=en&type=TXT&ancre=, both accessed 15 August 2017. For a brief summary, see Covington and Burling, “CJEU Adopts Broad Interpretation of Emissions Information That Authorities Must Disclose”, available at www.cov.com/en/news-and-insights/insights/2016/11/cjeu-adopts-broad-interpretation-of-emissions-information-that-authorities-must-disclose, accessed 15 August 2017.

³⁰⁶ By “campaign”, we mean the continuous provision to all levels of governance, economic actors and citizens of general and specific information about the health risks of toxic pesticides, as distinguished from short-lived, targeted law enforcement campaigns analysed by Benjamin van Rooij “The Politics of Law in China: Enforcement Campaigns in the Post-Mao PRC”, Working Paper, 25 March 2009, available at http://ssrn.com/abstract=1368181, accessed 15 August 2017.

* CV Starr Professor of Law, EU Jean Monnet Chair ad personam and Director, Centre for Research on Transnational Law, Peking University School of Transnational Law, Peking University Shenzhen Graduate School, Shenzhen, China; Special Endowed Chair Professor of Food Safety, Northwest University of Agriculture and Forestry, Yangling, Shaanxi, China; Emeritus Professor, CERIC, Aix-Marseille University, France; Visiting Professor, College of Europe, Bruges, Belgium.

** BA, Nanchang University; JD and JM Candidate, Peking University School of Transnational Law, and Research Assistant, Centre for Research on Transnational Law, Peking University School of Transnational Law, Peking University Shenzhen Graduate School, Shenzhen, China.

Table 1Summary of the Effects of the Eight Pesticides

Table 2Number of Suppliers of the Eight Pesticides

Table 3Progress in Introduction of MRLs

Article contents

A Tale of Eight Pesticides: Risk Regulation and Public Health in China

Abstract

Information

I INTRODUCTIONFootnote 1

II EIGHT PESTICIDES

1 Introduction

2 Risk assessment of agricultural pesticides

3 Organophosphates

a. Chlorpyrifos

b. Diazinon

c. Dimethoate

d. Methidathion

e. Omethoate

f. Phosmet (Imidan)

g. Phosphamidon

4 Pyrethroids

a. Bifenthrin

5 Summary of risks

III VALUE CHAINS, AGRICULTURAL USE AND (BRIEFLY) RESIDUES

1 Value chains for pesticides in China

2 Pesticides in agricultural production

3 Pesticide residues

IV RISK REGULATION

1 The labyrinth

2 Two regulatory paths

3 Normative framework

a. National rules

b. Provincial and municipal rules

4 Implementation, enforcement and compliance

V ANALYSIS

VI POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS

VII CONCLUSION

Footnotes

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Conflicting interests

I INTRODUCTIONFootnote ¹