Page 58 - Trade and Food Standards

FAO also participates in the more recently established Global Food Safety Partnership, which focuses on coordination and advocacy on food-safety capacity development, with an emphasis on public-private partnerships. Partnership and coordination are essential to obtain the best results from capacity- development investments.
At the national level, too, coordination is critical in the planning and implementation of food safety capacity development. Since food-safety and quality activities commonly involve many agencies across several ministries, counterproductive competition for resources can arise. Instead, there needs to be cooperation and coordination in identifying priorities for capacity development and mobilizing and managing investments to achieve them.
Chile: Building trust among trading partners by investing in laboratory capacity
Food exports make a significant contribution to the Chilean economy, totalling more than USD 10 billion in 2015. However, before 2011, Chile encountered challenges in satisfying all relevant food safety and -quality import requirements. One major limitation was in the area of food-contamination and drug-residue testing and monitoring, where the EU, a leading trading partner, recommended multiple improvements, including in analytical capabilities. In response, FAO/ IAEA implemented a technical- cooperation programme to enhance the capacities of the Chilean Agriculture and Livestock Service (SAG) laboratory system.
Following the improvements made to the system, the core SAG laboratory oversees and periodically audits a network of six local private laboratories, provides technical guidance, schedules mandatory inter-laboratory testing and re-analyses 7-10 percent of samples – all with ongoing mentoring and support from FAO/IAEA. The results have
enhanced trust among trading partners, including the EU, which signalled its confidence in the quality of the lab results and commended the system’s effectiveness.
FAO/IAEA collaboration – including through technology transfer and technical advice – was key to this successful change. FAO/IAEA-supported research into analytical techniques for food safety guided the direction of the lab capacity building, and a number of the Chilean labs today participate in the international network conducting research and exchanging findings. With ongoing FAO/IAEA support, Chile now contributes to an interregional food safety project involving 28 countries – building networks and equipping developing countries with the platform and technical capacities they need to contribute effectively to international food safety standards and guidelines, including under the auspices of the Codex Alimentarius.
Source: FAO
46 Trade and food standards
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