07/10/2010

The Spanish Agency for Food Safety and Nutrition has participated in the training program AECID (Spanish Agency of International Cooperation for Development), held in different countries. In this case the course known as "Tools for Food Safety and Food Control" was organized in the city of La Antigua, Guatemala. Participants came from Guatemala, Costa Rica, Honduras, El Salvador, Panama, Chile, Mexico, Colombia, Cuba, Peru and Dominican Republic.

Experience has shown that it is necessary to adopt measures to ensure that unsafe foods are not marketed and to provide systems to identify and address food security issues, to ensure the proper functioning of the market and to protect the health of people. It is necessary to strengthen consumer confidence in the decision process on which food law is based and its scientific foundation and the structures and independence of the institutions that protect the health interests as well as other interests.

This work should be developed through an open and transparent development of existing food legislation and the corresponding actions of the authorities, who must take the necessary measures to inform the public when there are reasonable grounds to suspect that a foodstuff might present a risk to health.

Past food crisis experienced in Europe showed that it was necessary to establish a better and wider early warning system, including food and feed. The Commission, the Member States as members of the network and the Authority, set up appropriate measures in emergency situations to ensure that all foods, independent on the type and origin, and all feed should be subject to common measures in case of a serious risk for human and animal health or for the environment.

Concepts like traceability helps us to extend our knowledge of the structure of the food chain in order to detect and correct potential structural failures, trying to improve relations between the different components of the chain, from producer to consumer. Being able to identify the origin of a food and to be capable to keep track throughout its life, promotes safety and provides credit to the product.

The study on the intuitive assessment of risk is important to understand the public's reaction to technology and its impact on health and the environment. Research on risk perception is often destined to guide policy and decision making by examining how people evaluate and judge the technologies and dangerous activities.
Communication plays a key role throughout the process of risk analysis as a means to ensure that management strategies actually reduce risks transmitted by food. Many of the measures of communication within the process are internal and iterative exchanges between managers and risk assessors. Two key steps, hazard identification and selection of risk management options, require communication with all stakeholders to help improve the transparency of decisions and increase the potential level of acceptance of results.

In the course of the activity the relevant issues were elaborated as announced in the programme (which can be downloaded at the end of this note), and case studies were developed to clarify certain issues that had appeared. We also had opportunity to visit the facilities of a market in Antigua.

The group worked in a rigorous manner and as a result of the good atmosphere, the attendants will try to establish some kind of future relationship in an attempt to facilitate contact between them.

On behalf of the Spanish Agency for Food Safety and Nutrition participated Juan Julián García Gómez, Senior Adviser of AESAN and Sara Gomez Troyano, Senior Technician of the General Directorate of Food Risk Management.

Invaluable help was received from the Training Centre of the Spanish Cooperation in Antigua, through its Director, Mercedes Flórez as well as Mª Luisa Aumesquet and Marisa Zúñiga.

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