The FAO regional bulletin highlights food safety issues

The latest edition of a regional bulletin has highlighted food safety and the need to improve the situation.

The Near East and North Africa (NENA) region includes Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen.

The second quarter bulletinpublished by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), focusing on food safety challenges, strategies and actions.

Despite food safety management systems in the region, consumers are at high risk of exposure to contaminated food and foodborne illness due to factors such as tropical climate and use of unsafe water supplies for irrigation and food washing. Also, weak infrastructure, including storage, roads and cold chains, contributes to the increase in food spoilage, which is expected to worsen due to climate change.

FAO efforts

The letter states that there is a lack of coordination between food safety sectors, and limited capacity for risk assessment and science-based approaches. The shortage of quality data hinders the implementation of risk-based preventive systems and effective risk management.

An FAO study to map food safety and quality in the NENA region has identified several factors contributing to food safety challenges, including insufficient knowledge of good agricultural and livestock practices among producers; excessive use of chemicals and drugs during food and animal production; insufficient controls and a lack of awareness in the supply chain.

Water scarcity has become a challenge due to rapid population growth and climate change. Other problems include overuse of pesticides, antibiotic residues, mycotoxin contamination and food adulteration.

The FAO is also preparing a report covering various components of the national food control system, such as the requirements of authorities drafting or issuing regulations, developing standards, accreditation, certification, inspection, testing, risk assessment and metrology, as well as their involvement and responsibilities in the field of food control and enforcement.

Five priority areas were identified, including strengthened control of primary food production, promotion of food safety and control management, and recognition of the importance of an integrated data management system for preparedness and response to outbreaks and emergencies.

Recent food safety-related events in the region include the third annual Food Safety and Nutrition Summit for the GCC countries in Qatar in May 2024. In April, the UAE hosted a conference on combating food fraud. FAO organized a workshop and training session in June to strengthen food safety assessment practices. World Food Safety Day was also celebrated in June with the help of the WHO Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean.

Calls for data

In other news, the World Health Organization (WHO) has called for data on lead in spices, dried bark and dried culinary herbs.

Data on the occurrence of lead in these products should cover the past decade and country of origin to help assess geographic representativeness. Entries must be submitted and uploaded to the WHO Global Environment Monitoring System (GEMS) database by October 31.

Another call concerns data on the occurrence of tropane alkaloids in food and feed at different stages of production. Tropane alkaloids are secondary plant metabolites divided into three main groups: hyoscyamine and scopolamine, cocaine and cysteine.

The data should include the name and group to which the tropane alkaloid belongs, be from the last ten years, and indicate the country of origin to increase geographical representativeness. The submission must also indicate the stage of sampling. The deadline is also October 31.

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