29. Comments from Australia on GF3
-----Original Message-----
From: VanDerWal, Londa (ESNS)
Sent: 26 May 2005 08:49
To: GF3-L@mailserv.fao.org
Subject: Comments from Australia on GF3 (GF3-L message #29)
Message from Scott Crerar, Australia
___________________________________________________________
Dear GF3 e-forum participants,
I was the head (of only 2 members) of the Australian delegation to GF2 and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Australia is committed to participating in and contributing to future Global Forums. Whilst GF2 was an outstanding opportunity to meet and mix with a broad range of food regulators from around the world and learn about some of their experiences, I feel that the forum fell short, on a formal basis, in achieving its major aims and objectives of effectively sharing information and learning from other country experiences. The major reason for this, in line with other country comments on this E-forum, is that there were too many formal presentations and insufficient time for workshopping and open discussion on many of the issues that were raised. In essence, the 4 day GF2 meeting only devoted one morning for workshopping and open discussion. This needs to be turned around to allow several days of workshops that discuss well focussed themes. This could be facilitated by a few short symposia presentations before each workshop theme. Future forums would benefit through collective input to determine both the format and themes to be discussed at the meetings, as this will help make the meetings of greater benefit to a broader range of both developing and developed countries. In this sense, I congratulate FAO and WHO for initiating this E-mail discussion to enable collective views to be harnessed.
I believe that a GF3 meeting should be supported and ideally held between major Codex meetings early or later in the year (Autumn or Spring for us southern hemisphere folk) in an interested host nation, possibly a developing country. I support the interval between GF-meetings being two years. Australia is very supportive of themes 1 (reaping the benefit of new national food safety systems - reducing the risk from food), 2 (food safety - doing more with less) and 5 (the food chain approach to promote food safety) being discussed at the GF3. In particular with respect to theme 1, as countries move away from an end product inspectorial approach to a more modern outcomes based approach, there is a particular need to look at how countries are approaching or have approached the implementation and enforcement of such a regime, including at the import level. As highlighted by Finland, the focus in the future will be on verification and audit of preventative and risk based food safety systems and programs. Enforcement authorities will need to adapt and re-prioritise their regulatory activities to this change in emphasis and the sharing of tools and mechanisms from countries that have started down this road would be extremely informative for other countries that are not as advanced. I look forward to participating in upcoming GF meetings.
Many thanks,
Dr Scott Crerar
Manager, Post Market Operations
Food Standards Australia New Zealand, AUSTRALIA
Dr Scott Crerar
Manager, Post Market Operations
Food Standards Australia New Zealand
PO Box 7186 Canberra BC ACT 2610
E-mail: scott.crerar@foodstandards.gov.au
Website: www.foodstandards.gov.au
Phone: +61 2 6271 2235
Fax: +61 2 6271 2278
Mobile: +61 (0)401 716 101
-----Original Message-----
From: VanDerWal, Londa (ESNS)
Sent: 26 May 2005 18:22
To: GF3-L@mailserv.fao.org
Subject: Risk assessment (GF3-L message #30)
Message from Prof. J. George, India ___________________________________________________________
Dear GF3 e-forum participants,
By way of introduction, I am an economist and am involved in researching the food safety regulation issues from the developing country perspective. I am writing a book on "Sequencing Food safety regulation reform in a developing country". I have been in this field for the last three years. God willing I should complete the manuscript in time for release of the book before or during the Hongkong Ministerial of WTO. I am seriously charged with the responsibility of capacity building amongst government officials. Let me precede my observations with a qualification. I have not been a participant either at GF1 or GF2 but have been concerned about the exclusionary framework of these GFs. Hopefully GF3 will be more inclusive and will have a better format to encourage non-official academicians and capacity building specialist to be engaged with/
1) Objective: yes this is an excellent beginning towards making the food
safety system much more broad based. Therefore information sharing,netwroking and even sharing difficulties and successes are worth the trouble in open learning that e-forums like this will provides.
2) Format
- forum on general themes or workshop on particular topic(s)- both these are required and can go simultaneously. For example,SPS agreement is often viewed from the TBT spectacle. So a general theme could be the HEART of SPS agreement, namely Harmonization, Equivalence, Assessment of Risk and Transparency. Then the specific theme could be the Risk Assessment in a scientific mode for which a decentralised mechanism for hands on training and capacity building could be organised during stage 2 that will follow a E-forum initiations through candid discussion.Some specific inputs on this theme is appended below under the GF3 topic 1 on risk assessment. Proposed length of discussion time- I guess a four-six weeks discussion on the general theme may be sufficient for those already into the food business. However, a more flexible time frame may be required if a large number of scientific and technical people join in. They may be first initiated into the trade and food safety issues as well under the general theme. It is very important that a forum like this involve a large number of scientific snd technical community rather restricting to government officials who may be merely doing a job as a career civil servant.
3) Themes
- please comment on/rank the attached themes which have been proposed by the FAO/WHO secretariat- I will give my detailed comments on a sunsequent date. But I will definitely place at #1 the risk analysis issues. The reasons are given below.
In terms of proposing alternative themes, I have always wondered why is CAC the strongest of the three sisters while IPPC is the weakest link.Notably FAO is responsible for both. Then the Avian influemza episode in the eastern asian context has brought into sharper focus the OIEs limitations in mapping out the host-parasite-infectious etc. route.Looked at from the trade perspective, northern developed countries do not provide equivalence to imports of meat and poultry from the developing south countries. This may be more to do with recognising ALOP or the political economy of international trade.
4) Timeframes/locations
- held in conjunction with CAC sessions; approximate year to convene; length of forum; proposed locations; etc. I would like to recommend a tiered approach. First, the coalition of countries in WTO since already in engagement with each other having developed a sustainable working relationship over two years could have sattellite meetings. These could be preceded by a wide ranging e-forum inputs.The three sisters could be an integral part of these discussions and interactions. The second tier could be a mid level meeting of scientific and technical community for about two days to be followed by a high level policy making body. Perhaps it may be a worthwhile proposition to have a wider array of participation through the E-forum.
5) Other comments- comment on the usefulness of a GF-3, other pertinent
comments.
My other comments and observations are for the time being will be concentrated on topic 1 and is appended below for your consideration. My comments are based on the risk assessment protocol. The scientific merit argument indeed can be carried out by scientific community.
Then why is that such groups are not given policy space in deliberations. It
is often noticed that that the risk communication and management aspects
get primacy over more onerous task of risk analysis. There is delay in
developing a suitable protocol. Surely there are cost-effective methods. Should
detection sensitivities, that is heavily biased towards technological superiority, be given prominence? I think it should not and the CAC should get their recommendations on this issue very clearly articulated at the SPS
committee of WTO. Mind you participating in the WTO meeting is an expensive affair for many developing countries. The E-forum could mitigate this concern by providing a preview as well as review of the SPS committee developments.
In addition we must recognise that Compliance involves cost and a cumbersome process. If it is transferred to the producers the burden is too heavy to be borne
by the smallholder producers. Therefore the state agencies in developing
countries have a distinct proactive role to play.
I will stop here for the time being.
Thanks a ton and with warm regards,
Prof. J. George
************************
J. George (Ph.d. Economics, Delhi School of Economics)
Professor and Head, Faculty of Economics and Development Planning
(FEDP),
HIPA Complex, 76, Sector 18, Gurgaon-122001 (Haryana) India
Phone (O) 95124 2343088
