(CN) Milk use report lands Olympics vegetable supplier in hot water

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South China Morning Post

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by Martin Zhou

Dec 26, 2007

 

Organisers of the Beijing Olympics reprimanded one of the Games' vegetable

suppliers yesterday after the company divulged some mind-boggling techniques

used to cultivate its crops, including fertilising plants with milk.

Guo Jingwang , deputy manager of the Lufu Longyangfang Vegetable Farm,

admitted that a story published yesterday in the Beijing-based The First

newspaper, got his company into trouble.

 

The paper quoted Mr Guo as saying that his farm in the capital's suburban

Yanqing county - one of more than a dozen designated Olympics vegetable

farms in Beijing and its neighbouring provinces - poured beer, milk and

vinegar on to the crops in addition to conventional fertilisers.

 

The report concluded that the cost of growing the Olympics vegetables could

be as much as five times the outlay on normal crops.

 

Mr Guo agreed the story was an accurate record of what he said. But the

Beijing Organising Committee of the Olympic Games (Bocog) has made a private

complaint to the farm over the " potentially misleading " information they

released.

 

" The Bocog people have called up to complain that the revelation of such

details to the press could have a potentially misleading effect and warned

that we should not abuse the Olympics exposure to advance our business

interests, which we genuinely didn't intend to do, " Mr Guo said.

 

Bocog officials could not be reached for comment yesterday.

 

The censure was a throwback to the authorities' handling of the three-month

uproar surrounding an Olympics' pork supplier.

 

Bocog flew into fury last month after an attempt at marketing by the

Qianxihe Food Group, the Games' official pork supplier, generated unexpected

controversy.

 

A Qianxihe representative told reporters in August that pigs, bred in a

secret location under 24-hour watch for the Olympics, were fed Chinese

herbal medicines to ward off sickness and did two hours of outdoor exercise

a day.

 

The mainland bloggers then contrasted the pampering of the pigs to the

government's lack of care for the country's ever expanding underprivileged,

and decried the practice as special treatment for foreigners.

 

Bocog issued a strong denial of the reports and Qianxihe backtracked from

its previous claims and accused the media of distortion.

 

This time around, Mr Guo also blamed the media for playing up the " wrong "

part of the story.