Greater international cooperation is needed to prevent unsafe food from causing ill health and hampering progress towards sustainable development. This was stated by world leaders at the inaugural session of the First International Food Safety Conference, which is underway in Addis Ababa.
Organised by the African Union (AU), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Trade Organization (WTO), the two-day conference is aimed at identifying key actions that will ensure the availability of, and access to, safe food now and in the future. This will require a strengthened commitment at the highest political level to scale up food safety in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
Ministers of agriculture, health, and trade, leading scientific experts, partner agencies and representatives of consumers, food producers, civil society organisations and the private sector from about 130 countries are participating in the conference.
A follow-up event, the International Forum on Food Safety and Trade, will focus on interlinkages between food safety and trade. It is scheduled to be hosted by WTO in Geneva (on April 23 and 24, 2019). The two meetings are expected to galvanise support and lead to actions in the key areas that are strategic for the future of food safety.
Food contaminated with bacteria, viruses, parasites, toxins or chemicals causes over 600 million people to fall ill and 4,20,000 to die worldwide every year. Illness linked to unsafe food overloads healthcare systems and damages economies, trade and tourism.
“The impact of unsafe food costs low- and middle-income economies around $95 billion in lost productivity each year. Because of these threats, food safety must be a paramount goal at every stage of the food chain, from production to harvest, processing, storage, distribution, preparation and consumption,” the conference participants stressed.
“The partnership between the AU and the United Nations (UN) has been longstanding and strategic,” Moussa Faki Mahamat, chairperson, African Union Commission, stated, adding, “This food safety conference is a demonstration of this partnership. Without safe foods, it is not possible to achieve food security.”
“There is no food security without food safety,” said José Graziano da Silva, director general, FAO, during his remarks.
He added, “This conference is a great opportunity for the international community to strengthen political commitments and engage in key actions. Safeguarding our food is a shared responsibility. We must all play our part. We must work together to scale up food safety in national and international political agendas.”
“Food should be a source of nourishment and enjoyment, not a cause of disease or death,” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general, WHO.
“Unsafe food is responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths every year, but has not received the political attention it deserves. Ensuring people have access to safe food takes sustained investment in stronger regulations, laboratories, surveillance and monitoring. In our globalised world, food safety is everyone’s issue,” he added.
“Food safety is a central element of public health and will be crucial in achieving the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals,” said Roberto Azevedo, director general, WTO, said.
“Trade is an important force to lift people out of poverty. When we reconvene in Geneva in April, we will consider these issues in more depth,” he added.
Changing food systems
Technological advances, digitalisation, novel foods and processing methods provide a wealth of opportunities to simultaneously enhance food safety, and improve nutrition, livelihoods and trade.
At the same time, climate change and the globalisation of food production, coupled with a growing global population and increasing urbanisation, pose new challenges to food safety.
Food systems are becoming even more complex and interlinked, blurring lines of regulatory responsibility. Solutions to these potential problems require inter-sectoral and concerted international action.
Strengthened collaboration
One of the central themes of the conference is the need for food safety systems to keep pace with the way food is produced and consumed.
This requires a sustained investment and coordinated, multi-sectoral approaches for regulatory legislation, suitable laboratory capacities, and adequate disease surveillance and food monitoring programmes, all of which need to be supported by information technologies, shared information, training and education.
