Research Priorities, Policy Frameworks And Practices In Food Safety

The concept of One Health:

- Dr. K.V. Satyanarayana

Introduction

Different food safety hazards can arise across the ‘farm to fork’ value chain and, thus, monitoring and control should take place at multiple points. Some hazards can only be controlled at farm level, for example, pesticide residues in plant sourced foods and antimicrobial residues in animal sourced foods. For biological hazards, controls may be needed at multiple stages - from raising crops or animals and post-harvest or post slaughter practices to processing and consumption - in order to significantly reduce the risk of food borne diseases. The One Health approach considers the complete ‘farm to fork’ chain along with cross-sectoral collaboration in significantly improving food safety.

Adopting Required Research Priorities, Policy Frameworks and Practices in Food Safety

The Food Safety and Standard Act, 2006 (FSS, 2006) stipulates the limits for “contaminants, naturally occurring toxic substances, heavy metals, etc.” and “pesticides, veterinary drugs residues, antibiotic residues and microbiological counts, etc.” in food. The FSS (Contaminants, Toxins and Residues) Regulations, 2011 only has standards for antibiotics in fisheries and honey and currently, there is no regulation for use of antibiotics in livestock in India. In November 2017, FSSAI amended the draft notification specifying tolerance limit for antibiotics and other veterinary drugs used in livestock. Hopefully, this regulation will be finalized soon after consultations with various stakeholders.