"Now I buy food at supermarkets, rather than open-air markets and small stores before," said Ms. Liu while shopping at a supercenter in Haidian District of Beijing.

"I often wonder what food remains safe," she added, refusing to give her full name.

Her concern is echoed by a majority of Chinese people. An earlier survey by the State Food and Drug Administration showed 65 percent of the respondents worried about food safety situation in China.

"The concerns reflect their dissatisfaction with government performance on food safety checking. Food security is vital to building a harmonious society," said Lu Jianzhong, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), the top political advisory body.

Last year China experienced a string of food safety problems including steroid-tainted pork, parasite-infested snails, turbots that contain excessive amount of carcinogens, ducks and hens that were fed cancer-causing Sudan Red dye to make their egg yolks red.

Advisor Ren Qixing appealed for the set-up of a unified "farmland to kitchen" food safety supervision mechanism in a bid to tackle the current segmented and lax government checking mainly blamed for the frequent food safety scares in the country.

Ren, chairman of the CPPCC's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Regional Committee in northwest China, said the supervision system should cover the whole process of food production, rather than on the finished food products alone.

Ren added that half a dozen government departments are responsible for food safety in China. "As a result, they often have supervision loopholes and don't have to worry about being held accountable for food safety scares," Ren said.

Another advisor Ren Yuling noted the punishment of large-scale food safety accidents should be far more severe. "Slack punishment is often impossible to deter the people involved in the food safety scares."

The fifth session of the Tenth CPPCC National Committee kicks off on March 3 and will end on March 15.

(Xinhua News Agency March 4, 2007)