This Day, That Year

Item from Nov 14, 1993, in China Daily: Customers buy dried vegetables with green food labels at a market in downtown Beijing. In 1990, green food labeled by the Ministry of Agriculture by-and-large untainted by pollution began to appear on the market.

By improving the standards and the supervision mechanism, the country's organic product certification system has become one of the strictest in the world.

At the same time, the country's appetite for organic food products - those produced without synthetic pesticides and fertilizers and not containing genetically modified elements - has surged as people's purchasing power and awareness of the importance of a healthy lifestyle grows.