Abstract:

Environmental quality of a place is an important factor that directly affects quality of the agricultural produce therefrom. Different standards for environmental quality are adopted for different crops and different quality management systems in China. A comparative study was performed to systematically analyze the criteria set in the national standards and trade standards for environmental quality for the production of general agricultural produce, green food, pollution-free agricultural product, and organic product, from three aspects i. e. distribution of standards, environment factors detection index systems and limit values of detection indices, and specify similarities of and differences between the environmental quality test index systems for producing areas of the three types of agricultural produce. Results show that for pollution-free agricultural product producing areas, the criteria for environmental quality are the most in number, covering a complete in ventory of agricultural produce and all criterion levels; for green food producing areas, there are not so many criteria; and for organic product producing areas, no specific criteria have been set yet, and the criteria for producing general agricultural products are used. In terms of strictness, the criteria for green food are the highest and followed by those for pollution-free agricultural product and then those for organic product (as general agricultural produce). Further comparison of the three important environmental factors in requirement of the three systems shows that soil quality is the most important factor, for which the requirements varied sharply between the three systems, irrigation water quality comes next and air quality the last in variation of requirement. In the end some problems existing currently in standard formulation are discussed, i. e. lack of uniform names and units for environmental indices, incompatibility of the standards, and absence of specific environmental criteria for organic product producing areas. The study was conducted in the hope that the findings will serve as reference for the ongoing zoning of organic product producing areas in the light of environmental superiority and revision of the environmental standards for producing areas of the three types of agricultural produce.

Key words: agricultural product producing area environment, standard, organic product, pollution-free agricultural product, green food