All-round food safety. ‘The first ever World Food Safety Day‘, WFSD, took place on June 7, 2019 at the stimulus of the United Nations. To urge the implementation of the priorities already included among the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), in UN Agenda 2030.
World Food Safety Day, the reasons why
Every year, nearly one in ten (about 600 million people) become ill and 420,000 people die as a result of consuming food and drink contaminated with bacteria, viruses, parasites or toxic substances. Food poisoning claims 125,000 victims each year, 40 percent of whom are children under the age of 5. Unsafe food hampers development in many low- and middle-income economies, which, according to recent estimates, lose about $95 billion in productivity due to illness, disability and premature death of workers.
The United Nations General Assembly thus agreed in December 2018 to establish World Food Security Day on June 7 each year. (1) Entrusting its promotion to FAO(Food and Agriculture Organization) and WHO/WHO(World Health Organization). The two U.N. agencies that since the 1960s established the Codex Alimentarius Commissionare credited with developing the rules underlying international food law. A number of standards have been developed in this area, including the General Principles on Food Hygiene. The document where theHazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) system was introduced, which integrates good hygiene practices as a safeguard to ensure food safety.
The goal, once again, is to draw the attention of decision makers on the planet, in the public as well as the private sector. And inspire the adoption of concrete initiatives, as effective as possible. Time is running out, and universal human rights to safe and healthy food-as well as clean water-are still a mirage for large parts of the global population. Preventing, assessing and appropriately managing food safety risks is therefore a global priority. The starting point for contributing to sustainable development including human health, economic prosperity, agriculture and market access.
World Food Safety Day 2019, a guide for everyone
‘Food safety, everyone’s business, A Guide to World Food Safety Day 2019.’ is the title of the guide prepared to draw everyone’s attention – institutions, operators and consumers – to food safety. (2) Focusing on five points essential to achieving the goals.
1. ‘Ensure that it is safe‘. Governments must ensure healthy and nutritious food for all‘
National governments have a crucial role in ensuring safe and nutritious food. As well as in the management of risks and emergencies throughout the supply chain. All countries around the world are urged to align their regulations with Codex Alimentarius standards.
2. ‘Grow it safely‘. Producers must adopt good practices‘
Good agricultural practices must be applied in every supply chain and geographical context. To ensure food safety from the primary stage, as well as reduce the impact on the environment and help mitigate climate change.
3. ‘Keep it safe‘. Commercial operators must ensure safe food‘. All operators in the supply chain, from farm to fork, must ensure the safety of food and feed at the stage of their responsibility. Self-control, good hygienic practices and HACCP, must be carefully applied and supervised. Also with a view to reducing food waste.
4. ‘All consumers have the right to safe, healthy and nutritious food.’
Consumers have the power-and the responsibility(#votocolportfolio), we add-to direct change. It is therefore necessary to make suitable information available to them to promote healthy food choices that come from fair and sustainable supply chains. With emphasis on nutrition news and diseases associated with unbalanced diets.
5. ‘Working Together‘. Food healthiness is a shared responsibility‘.
The various actors who share responsibility for food healthiness-governments, regional economic bodies, the UN and related organizations and agencies, trade organizations, consumers and producer groups, academics and research institutions, and private entities-must collaborate at all levels.
Food safety and food security, complementary needs
‘Food safety ‘ is the phrase often used in Italian to translate two different, if equally essential and complementary, concepts:
1)food safety, or ‘wholesomeness,’ in the definition offered by the FAO, is the absence-or the presence within acceptable limits-of hazards, in food products, that may compromise the health of consumers. (3) Food safety risk can be:
– microbiological (e.g., more or less dangerous bacteria, sometimes resistant to antibiotics, and viruses),
– chemical (e.g. Pesticide residues, antibiotics, hormones, veterinary drugs or additives not allowed. Mycotoxins, acrylamide. Mineral oils and other environmental pollutants), or
– physical (e.g., allergens, foreign bodies such as glass or metal fragments, microplastics).
Added to this are the risks associated with migration of toxic substances contained in food contact materials and articles (MOCAs). Risks often overlooked by consumers themselves, as the recent Eurobarometer survey shows,
2) Food security, on the other hand, is related to the security of food supplies. That is, the ‘subsistence of each individual’s physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life, meeting dietary needs and food preferences.’ (4)
‘There can be no food safety without food wholesomeness. If it’s not healthy, it’s not food‘. (José Graziano da Silva, FAO Director-General)
Dario Dongo and Giulia Caddeo
Notes
(1) See UN resolution 20.12.18 no. 73/250
(2) ‘Food safety, everyone’s business, A Guide to World Food Safety Day 2019‘, http://www.fao.org/3/ca4449en/ca4449en.pdf
(3) http://www.fao.org/food-safety/en/
(4) Rome Declaration on Food Security, adopted at the FAO World Food Summit in 1996.
Dario Dongo, lawyer and journalist, PhD in international food law, founder of WIISE (FARE - GIFT - Food Times) and Égalité.
Graduated in law, master in Food, Law & Finance. You have explored the theme of green procurement and urban food policies in the International Cooperation and Peace sector of the City of Turin.
