Review and Suggestion for Nutrition Standard of Agricultural Products in China

With the steady and sustainable development of Chinese economy, society, and the continuous improvement of residents’ living standards, consumers are increasingly concerned about the nutritional quality of agricultural products and their dietary health. It is imperative to develop nutrition-sensitive agriculture, which is supported by nutrition standard of agricultural products. The objective of this paper was to develop the basic framework of nutrition standard of agricultural product in China by analyzing agricultural products standard system, including grading and specifications, green food, the grain & oil products, selenium-enriched agricultural products, geographical indication agricultural products, and organic foods. More specifically, this paper investigated the relationship of nutrition standards between food and agricultural product, mainly based on health food, pre-packaged food nutrition label. In addition, this paper deliberated the latest international developments in agricultural product nutrition standards, hoping to find more reference and suggestions for developing China’s nutrition standard system. We found that the nutrition standard of agricultural products in China was still on the early stage side, as few standards contain nutrition indicators. On this basis, we concluded that it was inevitable to put forward the proposition for the nutrition standard system of agricultural product in China. The standard system was divided into six aspects: basic standards, analytic methods of nutritional components, evaluation standards of nutritional quality, labeling, product standards and production technical regulations. From the point of view of evaluation standards of nutritional quality, agricultural products were divided into three categories: the bulk agricultural products, distinctive agricultural products and bio-fortified agricultural products.