"In the future, we will provide more oversight to the poultry-raising industry and intensify our efforts to punish those who feed animals excessive amounts of anti-biotics and veterinary drugs," he said. Those found to be violating laws and standards will be punished.

Local breeds preferred

Change is filtering through China's poultry-raising industry following the chicken scandal.

Chickens that are raised in a natural environment are considered more nutritious. The scandal has boosted the market demand for local drug-free chicken and will likely bring dramatic changes to China's poultry industry, according to the Chinese Business Times, a Beijing-based daily newspaper.

Recently, the price of local drug-free chicken has soared to 21 yuan ($3.37) per kg, up from 14-15 yuan ($2.25-2.4) per kg, the standard price for years, according to the Chinese Business Times.

There are three types of chicken in the Chinese market.

The first type is white feather chicken, which is dubbed "instant chicken" since its growth period is around 45 days.

China imported the white feather chicken from foreign countries in the 1980s and has become one of the three biggest white feather chicken producers worldwide after three decades of popularizing the breed. White feather chicken accounts for over half of the Chinese market and over 90 percent of the U.S. chicken meat market.

The second type is a hybrid of foreign white feather chicken and Chinese local chicken, which accounts for nearly 30 percent of the market share. The growth period for a hybrid chicken is 60-90 days.

The third type is traditional and local Chinese chicken, with a growth period of some 180 days.

Farmers must raise white feather chicken according to regulations, Shu Congxuan, head of the Hefei Poultry Association, told China Times, a financial weekly newspaper based in Beijing.

"Due to the shorter growth period, white feather chickens are more likely to get sick. So raisers have to feed them anti-biotics to keep them healthy. But the amount is strictly restricted by law and raisers mustn't feed them anti-biotics for seven days before they are slaughtered," he said.

Some farmers raise more chickens without expanding the chicken coop accordingly. The chickens are then crowded in a limited space, increasing their vulnerability to germs. In order to reduce their chances of dying as a result, raisers fed white feather chicken anti-biotics every day.

"The safety of chicken meat is a systematic issue that goes through the whole industrial chain, including poultry, the production of the fodder, slaughtering and logistics," Gong Guifen, Deputy Secretary General of China Poultry Association, told China Times. "The abuse of anti-biotics will harm consumers as the medicine remains in the chicken meat. Once a major food safety incident breaks out, all the companies in this sector will be influenced."

After the CCTV exposure, the price of white feather chicken slumped to 7 yuan ($1.12) per kg on December 21 from 9.8 yuan ($1.57) per kg in previous months, according to the Chinese Business Times.

Joint supervision needed

From the time a chicken is raised on a farm to the time it lands on a dinner table, several government departments are involved, including the MOA, the Ministry of Transportation, the Ministry of Commerce, the Ministry of Health and the SFDA.

The SFDA believes that an excessive use of anti-biotics is a matter for the MOA. The MOA, on the other hand, claims that its responsibility lies only in the production process, and says the onus is on other ministries for dealing with traces of anti-biotics, writes the Nanfang Daily.

Finger pointing then becomes the norm, and it is imperative that the responsibilities of each department are clear stated when it comes to ensuring food safety, said the report.

The chicken scandal exposed the weakness of a market economy, said Mei Xinyu, a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation.

"In a market economy, companies are driven by profits, which explains the abuse of anti-biotics in the poultry industry," said Mei. "When the market fails, the government, or other intermediary organs, should step up and apply the strictest supervision to reign in companies."

In the United States when McDonald's cups were found to contain excessive cadmium in June 2010, the company immediately recalled 12 million of those cups and apologized to the public.

However, when a similar scandal breaks out in China in the fast food industry, none of the companies step up to apologize to the public. The penalty for violating the law is thin. According to the country's Food Recall Regulation, KFC is only required to pay a fine of 30,000 yuan ($4,821).

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