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MeetingAddressing Food Safety Challenges of the Asia-Pacific Region 2018In the Asia and the Pacific region, food safety is important from the dual perspectives of improving public health and nutrition and enhancing trade in food commodities. Concerns of consumers on the fitness for consumption of food produced and traded across borders needs to be allayed through effective risk-based systems that assure safety and quality throughout the food chain. The paper discusses the key challenges being faced, some solutions, and potential partnerships (private sector, civil society, South-South triangular cooperation, development partners) that can be used to enhance food safety systems in the region. It describes FAO’s contribution to the strengthening of technical capacity to implement risk-based approaches in critical areas such as food inspection, monitoring, and surveillance; laboratory analysis; import control and strengthening the evidence base required for the framing of rules, regulations and procedures. It explains, with examples, how improved food-control measures and codes of practice can be implemented at every step of the chain, enabling smallholders to produce safer food and gain access to markets. It underscores the importance of implementing FAO’s action plan for tackling antimicrobial resistance (AMR) through technical capacity development, evidence generation, governance and dissemination of good practices. The paper dwells on FAO's One Health Regional Initiative, currently being rolled out, as an expanded multidisciplinary opportunity to demonstrate benefits to agriculture, food systems and the environment in the region. It argues that the adoption of voluntary and international food standards, especially from Codex, can lead to multiple wins for the consumer, for the private sector and the government in the form of safer and more nutritious food, increased innovation and trade and better public health. Ministers are invited to advise FAO on areas of focus in the development of national capacities in core technical areas of food safety and cohesive actions to harmonize food safety standards in the Asia-Pacific region to safeguard public health and promote trade.
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MeetingReport on the Outcome of the First Joint FAO and SPC Pacific Ministers of Agriculture and Forestry Meeting in Port Vila, Vanuatu, on 20 October 2017
Communiqué
2018The First FAO and SPC Joint Pacific Ministers of Agriculture and Forestry meeting was held at the Iririki Resort in Port Vila, Vanuatu on 20 October 2017. The meeting combined the previous Agriculture Ministerial meetings organised separately by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the Pacific Community (SPC). The Ministerial meeting was the culmination of the inaugural Pacific Week of Agriculture. The meeting was attended by Ministers from Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tokelau and Tuvalu, and Heads of Delegation from Australia, Federated States of Micronesia, French Polynesia, Guam, Marshall Islands, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Palau, Tonga and Vanuatu. -
MeetingRound Table on Imagining Future Healthy and Inclusive Food Systems in Asia and the Pacific 2018Asia and the Pacific is experiencing major demographic shifts and rapid urbanization. E-agriculture technologies (remote sensing, drones, sensors) are emerging, with potentially profound implications for the entire food system and management of the natural resource base. Structural transformation of the economy has also changed the nature of the food security problem. Earlier, many governments thought that producing more staple food was sufficient to improve food security. However, today’s economy, increasingly based on human capital and less on physical strength, requires that policies and programmes promote healthy diets for healthy people. This need for improved nutrition will require shifts in agricultural production and trade patterns. Solving the malnutrition problem in urban areas will also require different solutions than in rural areas, due to the difference in urban and rural food environments. In line with the structural transformation of the economy, farm households also increasingly rely on non-farm income to support their livelihoods and risk management strategies, which has implications for the uptake of new technologies. The demographic shifts, urbanization and structural changes in the economy, coupled with climate change, have made the food security and nutrition problem more complex than in the past. Solutions require input from different stakeholders, both public and private, as well as a range of government ministries, including health, finance, education, environment, trade and social welfare in addition to agriculture. This round table session will encourage delegates to exchange views on these challenges and share suggestions for creating healthy food systems that promote good nutrition and accelerate poverty reduction through inclusive and sustainable agricultural development.
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