Conference discusses solutions to enhance food safety

ABO/NDO- On October 18, a conference on quality assurance, food safety and transparency of food origin for Vietnamese consumers was held in Ho Chi Minh City.

Representatives of many associations and businesses said that ensuring domestic food safety still has many shortcomings in all stages of production, processing, consumption and management, causing insecurity for consumers.

According to the Director of The National Agro-Forestry-Fisheries Quality Assurance Department (NAFIQAD), Nguyen Nhu Tiep, the domestic food safety situation has gradually improved. The rate of food safety violations and food poisoning decreased but remained high due to the small scale of production, unstable quality, and lack of transparency of product origin information.

Representatives of agencies under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and Ho Chi Minh City signed an agreement to strengthen control of food origin at the conference.

On the other hand, policies and legislation are incomplete and not consistent with reality, and the supervision and inspection system is not effective, he noted.

Speaking at the conference, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Le Minh Hoan said that, in the long run, it is necessary to change the approach to food safety.

Instead of just a supervisory management agency, businesses must pioneer, guide and order farmers to have clean food and agricultural products, he said, adding that enterprises can start to cooperate with farmers on a small scale, then gradually expand when all is in order.

The ministry is also reviewing regulations on food safety, and standards for clean agricultural products, and then will review the regulations and propose the Government to amend them to be more suitable, the Minister noted.

(Source: NDO)