Many people are taking part in a heated discussion as a draft law of food safety has been released to solicit public opinions. With regard to the punishment for insecure food producers, the draft law set the maximum amount of compensation for consumers at ten times the prices of the products.

However, Beijing Youth Daily doubts if the punishment is strong enough.

The newspaper points out that the prices of food, such as grain, oil and fruits, are much lower than other commodities, so producers may need to pay only a small amount of money when consumers find they have bought unsafe food items. In this way, the paper argues the punishment is not severe enough to deter violations.

The newspaper suggests that the compensation level should be based on the actual losses for the consumers, such as health problems or job loss as a result of consuming their products.

The newspaper concludes by saying that high compensations or severe punishments are helpful to enforcing food producers to maintain safety of their products.