Through the Joint FAO/IAEA Programme of Nuclear Techniques in Food and Agriculture, the IAEA is helping to establish a Data Sharing Committee (DSC) in Latin America and the Caribbean to collect and manage a repository of data related to food safety. The database will allow food safety authorities and decision makers to institute preventative or proactive measures to ensure that food is safe for consumption.
To help regional experts understand how best to manage and operate such a database, the IAEA invited counterparts from the European Food Safety Agency (EFSA) to share their experiences. In October, EFSA experts described how they established their own data repositories and how they are used in risk assessment processes in the European Union.
“We're moving down the path to open data to show how we achieved our results, particularly when scientific evidence is used to support policy, said Jane Richardson, Lead Scientist for Open Data Activities at the EFSA. “It demonstrates independence. It shows transparency and ensures a reproducible risk assessment. And the result of that is consumer trust, and that’s really important for all of us in food safety.”
Representatives of the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA), the International Regional Agency for Agricultural Health (OIRSA) and the Caribbean Agricultural Health and Food Safety Agency (CAHFSA) participated in the event.
“Toxic residues in agricultural products, as well as contamination that can occur during harvesting, packaging and storage processes, pose a real and potential danger to the health of consumers,” said Efrain Medina, Executive Director of OIRSA.
“Although governments in the region are working towards addressing these issues, they face numerous challenges due to the multidisciplinary nature of food safety,” stated Lindley Collins, Chief Executive Officer of CAHFSA.
Ana Marisa Cordero, Programme Manager for Agricultural Health and Food Safety at IICA, agreed. “This effort is a contribution to the promotion of the collection of information allowing countries in the region to take decisions based on scientific evidence, which will contribute to increasing their technical capacities and competitivity,” she said.
The DSC is expected to officially launch in early 2021.