Page 66 - Trade and Food Standards

level can provide impetus to develop further guidance to make the system work better.
Many other drivers of change can be expected to present challenges for the global system of food standards and trade. The commitment of members to national preparation, and international engagement through Codex and the WTO SPS and TBT Committees, are crucial for navigating these challenges.
A growing and ever more interconnected global population requires greater international cooperation between members to address health risks. Food production will have to keep pace with a rising population. Increasing incomes lead to greater demand for animal products. On a planet that is home to more people and more animals, when a disease breaks out it spreads faster than in the past – faster still thanks to our greater interconnectedness, including through trade. While some diseases affect only animals or only humans, some animal diseases also pose a threat to humans, and new such diseases are emerging all the time. This poses a challenge to disease surveillance, and outbreaks can have a devastating effect on local production and the ability to trade.
Food safety – and thereby human health and economic well-being – is inextricably linked to the environment and organisms from which food is produced. Like the causes of transboundary animal diseases, food-borne pathogens in the food chain are influenced by multifaceted interactions between the environment, micro-organisms and reservoir hosts. Additional factors, such as climate change, water quality and availability, behavioural practices and trade policy decisions, can either drive or mitigate the emergence and global dissemination of food-borne hazards.
This interconnected reality means that proactive food safety leadership must be based on holistic analysis of the food system and multi-sectoral and international collaboration. Growing interconnectedness creates new incentives and opportunities for regulators to work together to identify emerging risks and to proactively respond to these risks.
FAO, OIE and WHO have endorsed the “One Health” approach – a collective and collaborative framework for addressing human, animal and
Food fraud
Food fraud is the deliberate substitution, addition, adulteration or misrepresentation of food or food ingredients for economic gain. Food fraud can be a threat to food safety or negatively impact the nutrition status of already vulnerable populations. At the core is a violation of the authenticity of food and the assumption that food labels convey truthful and accurate information.
When food fraud occurs, all downstream stakeholders in the supply chain immediately lose all trust in the authenticity of the food and trade can be frozen almost instantly. To rebuild trust and, in turn, resume trade, the authenticity of products in the market must be verified and demonstrated, which can be a long and expensive process. Food fraud always causes immense financial losses, as most consumers simply switch immediately to other products or categories and often never return.
Strong standards for authenticity that are regularly enforced throughout the entire value chain help prevent the occurrence of such events. In addition, a number of tools to assess the vulnerability of supply chains and organizations to food fraud have been developed by various organizations. However, discussions at the international level on the suitability of these tools are still under way, and it remains to be fully determined which mechanisms to prevent fraud and mitigate its impact will be most effective for global trade and value chains.
54 Trade and food standards
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