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"The Silver Bullet" for the "The Cinderella Sector"

Food Safety- Breakout session “More than one billion of the world population are hungry and more than two billion are sickened each year from the food they ate. Agriculture is exacting a heavy biological cost, but health policy and programs often stop at the clinic door.” Food safety has for a longtime been ignored in the talks regarding food security, despite food borne diseases being considered the number one killer in the world. This has further been compromised as food security has been stretched based on the high demands. Furthermore, over the years little investments have been directed to this area. reporting back_Delia Grace07 Delia Grace, International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) The suggested way to addressing food safety being from farm to folk, which includes the long chain from production to consumption, this includes; from harvesting, to the informal markets, to the storage, as well as areas of waste. Mycotoxins, which are very toxic fungus found in major crops and have been reported to contaminate over 25% of the world produce, are of great interest to researchers. Nevertheless, some progress have been made in this sector in the areas which include; advancing science, exciting technologies, risk analysis, integrated approaches and innovative platform. Discussions from scientist have identified new gaps in knowledge which form new priority research areas. These include; Impact of food-borne diseases and cost effective solutions in poor countries, Model for governance of food safety in markets, Foresights, Link between food security and nutrition and Methods for up and out scaling To deliver healthy outcomes for agriculture needs, a cross sectoral partnerships, like linking with food safety agencies, is of paramount importance. Furthermore, to add most value to these outcomes, more innovative scientific approaches are required, such as; Risk analysis, Incentive-based behavior change, Leverage new technologies(biocontrol, transgenic), Joining integrated approaches to putting together solutions for food security. Investment in food safety should be directed in research areas which include: Food borne diseases, assessment for insight; myths associated with poverty(food in supermarket are more exposed to micro-orgaisms than the open market food, according to the findings-hazards does not mean risks), regulation in the informal sectors. There is a gap in the food safety management and advocacy and policies should be directed towards harmonizing standards in foods and feed, enhancing capacity and regulators, development of standard protocol for sampling and quantification among others. It is obvious that food safety could be “the silver bullet ” in food security, and networking food safety with other value chains is the key. Bottom line, Food Security cannot be achieved without Food Safety

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