Starting this month, Shenzheners will be able to buy vegetables carrying bar codes that contain detailed information about the origin, processing and distribution of the vegetables.

Bar-coded vegetables will be introduced in farm produce markets in Shenzhen on a trial basis, yesterday's Daily Sunshine reported, quoting officials at the municipal agricultural inspection and quarantine station.

According to the existing plan, the first batch of vegetables with bar-coded stickers will appear on the market later this month. Consumers can log onto the Internet with the numbers on the bar-coded labels to check for information ranging from the name of the vegetables and certification information to where the vegetables are grown, use of pesticides and inspection and quarantine, said Huang Shaoyu, director of the station.

The report said the software for checking the related information is under development.

Huang told the newspaper that the majority of the vegetables sold in Shenzhen are from outside the city. To ensure food safety and facilitate the supervision of all the related chains in the sales of vegetables, the municipal agriculture bureau and the municipal quality supervision bureau joined hands last year to introduce the European Article Number (EAN), the international product marking bar code standard.

Shenzhen is reportedly the first city in Guangdong Province to use the EAN standard in the sales of vegetables.

Huang said several manufacturers of farm produce in Shenzhen had expressed interest in joining the bar-coded vegetables project. Officials with the municipal agriculture bureau said they would gradually introduce the EAN bar code standard to all vegetable farms so that the bar-coded vegetables can be available all over the city.

Editor: Yan