Agricultural and Livestock Health and Food Safety

Food Safety

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is the main United Nations agency specializing in all aspects of food quality and safety, and in all the different stages of food production, harvest, post-harvest handling, storage, transport, processing and distribution.

FAO adheres to the food chain approach in managing food safety and quality as a recognition of the responsibility of all actors in the food chain for the supply of food that is safe, healthy and nutritious.

FAO is committed to the enhancement of food safety and quality along the food chain at all levels, with the aim of preventing food-borne diseases, protecting consumers and promoting fair practices in the food trade.

Increasing global trade of food and agricultural products can produce benefits to consumers and producers by linking demand for greater variety with farmers and processors able to increase offer. With increased global trade, however, comes the risk of the rapid spread of food-borne contaminants and toxins.  Food safety and quality concerns have thus come to the forefront in this globalized context.  There is an ever-growing demand for capacities of the public sector to regulate food safety and for the private sector to have the capacities to produce and process to meet international standards.   

FAO is a key player in many food safety programmes, at both national and international levels.  The Direction of food and Nutrition (AGN) provides the Mixed Secretariat of Codex Alimentarius Commission (MILLRACE), which has carried out Joint Program FAO/WHO on food standards for more than forty years. This program has two main goals:

• To protect the consumers health of the food
• To guarantee fair practices in food trade.

As part of its programme of food safety, FAO offers scientific advise for the  establishment of standards through meetings or committees of mixed experts organized by the FAO and the WHO, such as the Joint Committee FAO/OMS of additive food Experts (JECFA), Joint Meeting FAO/OMS on Residues of Pesticides  (JMPR) and Joint Meetings FAO/OMS on Evaluation Microbiologic Risk  Assessment (JEMRA). There are other examples of joint and special consultations of experts on new or incipient problems such as Joint Consultation FAO/OMS of Experts on Acrilamid and the Special Committee on Foods Obtained by Biotechnological methods. In addition, many normative and field programs on the FAO technical departments, contribute directly or indirectly to improve capacities to control the safety foods and the quality in relation to food safety.

FAO/WHO Regional Conference on Food Safety for the Americas and the Caribbean
WHO Food Safety Department
 Codex Alimentarius

Projects:

Codex

• Subregional Project
•  Paraguay Project  
• Andean countries Subregional Project

Quality assurance on laboratories

• Quality assurance food laboratories in south America project  
• Quality assurance food laboratorie in, Cuba, México, Panamá and Dominican Repúblic project