Lootah opens Food Safety Conference

In his opening address, Lootah urged the co-operation of government bodies and all concerned to work together to provide healthy food for everybody.

"The world is facing the problem of starvation on the one hand and where there is excess of food the food safety is the hazard that leads to health issues," said Lootah.

He hoped that organizing these kinds of conferences will lead to finding solutions for these issues for the benefit of the human beings around the world.

Lootah said it is very important to discuss issues such as adding chemicals harmful to human health, which is a major problem affecting food safety all over the world.

He called the responsible bodies for taking effective steps to provide healthy food to people around the world.

Khalid Mohammed Sharif Al Awadhi, Assistant Director of Public Health Department and Head of Food Control Section in Dubai Municipality gave the Municipality presentation in the first session of the conference chaired by Amina Ahmed Mohammed, Head of Food and Environment Laboratory Section in the Central Laboratory Department.

Al Awadhi's presentation titled "the export and import food control in the UAE," dealt with the rules and regulations and the procedures followed by the Food Control Section in handling the food import and export.

He said all imported foods are subjected to three procedures such as studying the attached health certificates and documents; physical inspection and ensuring the fulfillment of the food label requirements; and drawing food samples to perform laboratory testing.

Al Awadhi said the consignment details such as Bill of entry or Airway bill, Packing list, Health Certificate, Halal Certificate and Re-export & other Health Certificates are subjected to study.

He said while drawing food samples for lab tests, risk factors such as consumption rate, Microbial, chemical and physical hazards, effect on vulnerable group, source, and testing history are to be considered.

Dr. Amin Mohammed Yousuf, Food Safety Consultant at the General Secretariat of UAE Municipalities in Abu Dhabi gave the second presentation of the day titled "Quality assurance in the food control laboratories."

The third paper "Food safety and problems associated with food trade," was presented by Dr. Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah, Chief of Food Control, Kingdom of Bahrain.

One of the highlights of the conference, which will last until Wednesday, is a visit from a delegation from the Codex Alimentarius Commission, which was set up by FAO and WHO. Representatives from the group, which aims to promote shared food standards around the world, will be joined by experts from across the region and from Canada, Australia and the United States to discuss some of the specific challenges facing the Middle East.

Issues related to international agreements such as WTO, and SPS agreements will also be discussed in the conference, in aadition to all issues pertaining to rejection of food consignments on scientific justifications and risk analysis.

Topics to be presented on Tuesday's session, chaired by Dr. Vincent Hegarty, Dean of College of Food and Agriculture, UAE University, include Importance of traceability in the food industry, Electronic certification system for animal products trade - the New Zealand example, Food safety system in the dairy industry and Food safety system in the meat industry.

Dr. Tamir Al Najjar, Professor, Department of Natural and Quantitative Science, Zayed University will chair the session on the concluding day on Wednesday. The topics for discussion will be Regulation of Genetically Modified foods in Saudi Arabia, International food laws and regulations, and Food safety challenges in the Middle East.

General Secretariat of Municipalities, all Municipalities of the UAE, regional food control authorities, interantional organizations such as Codex and WHO, academic institutions in the UAE which are concerned with food safety, food manufacturers and caterers, food importers and exporters and GCC standardization and Metrology Organization are participating the conference.