More than 96 percent of fresh and live farm produce in China will be up to national quality standards by 2010, an agricultural official said in Beijing on Tuesday at a press conference.

Deputy director Zhang Yanqiu with the Market and Economic Information Department of the Ministry of Agriculture said that China would strengthen the enforcement of the Quality Law on Farm Produce and strive to establish a long-term supervision mechanism.

"The focus of our future work will go to risk evaluation of farm produce, optimization of agriculture standards, quality inspection, and quarantine so as to secure the quality of all food products through safe raw materials," he said.

According to the latest regular quality inspection in April, 94.3 percent of the vegetables supplied in the markets in 37 Chinese cities have met the standards for pesticide residues.

Zhang said that China would also facilitate the expansion of rural economic cooperatives which allowed farmers to collaborate with one another and engage in mass production in line with unified standards.

(Xinhua News Agency July 11, 2007)