DIRECTOR of the Government Analyst Food and Drug Department, Mrs. Marilyn Collins said, last Friday, that Guyana can address a number of issues to ensure that it improves food safety.
She was addressing a symposium, hosted by Guyana National Bureau of Standards (GNBS) in Regency Suites Hotel, on Hadfield Street, Georgetown, to mark World Accreditation Day.
Collins said training in the provision of safe supplies of wholesome, nutritious foods must be an integral element of investment in agri-business and a pre-condition to successful agri-businesses and trade at all levels in the farm to table continuation.
“It is important to Guyana to invest in increasing the knowledge, capacities and motivation of staff, with regards to modern risk management tools, risk-based approaches, newly emerging diseases, laboratory and epidemiological methodologies and techniques,” she pointed out.
Collins said the call for safer food comes with the need for more rigorous regulations for the testing and certification of contaminations in exported, imported and domestic food and beverage products.
She recommended that an inter-ministerial and inter-disciplinary task force be set up to coordinate the re-organisation of the food safety system in keeping with the principles of a risk-based integrated network from farm to table.
This, Collins said, will foster greater collaboration among food scientists and regulators facilitating the appropriate level of protection to consumers and ensuring that regulatory measures do not constitute disguised restrictions on trade.
In addition, she advocated the creation of a National Food Authority/ National Agricultural Health and Food Safety Authority that will address all areas of duplication and inefficiencies and allow for the development of a cohesive multi-sectoral approach to food safety, with great emphasis on public health.
“Collaboration among government departments with shared responsibility for food safety will satisfy government’s obligation to ensure that only safe and well labelled and packaged foods are offered for sale,” she asserted.
It will also guarantee the introduction and implementation of an efficient and sustainable way for controlling the production and distribution of foodstuff and products in contact with food.
Additionally, Guyana can consolidate, modernise and have well trained multi-disciplinary inspectorate with competence to manage the entire food chain through the use of standardised risk-based procedures and protocols.
In doing so, it will involve the implementation of best system regimes such as application of good agricultural practices, good hygiene practices, quality assurance systems and Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point food safety management.
The systems will guarantee that the primary responsibility for food safety and quality rests with producers and processors, since no amount of sample and analyses can prevent inherently unsafe products from reaching the market.
Collins said, even as Guyana tries to address the development, strengthening and modernisation of its food safety process, there are new and emerging challenges within today’s global food chain, as the landscape is constantly changing in the light of globalisation, climate change, new technologies and environmental pollution.