CropLife Asia promotes role of plant science in delivering regional supply of safe food this World Food Safety Day

Singapore, 7 June 2020 – This World Food Safety Day, CropLife Asia and the plant science industry join the call by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and World Health Organization (WHO) to promote awareness and action to ensure food safety for everyone. Food safety is a shared responsibility between governments, growers, producers and consumers, meaning that we all have a role to play from farm-to-fork.

Amplified by the speed of globalized food trade, outbreaks of local foodborne disease can quickly evolve into international emergencies. Every year, an estimated 600 million people fall ill after eating contaminated food with 420,000 dying from consuming unsafe food[1]. This is a global health threat that endangers everyone, particularly the more vulnerable members of society.

To address this, Croplife Asia and the plant science industry continue to work with national associations and stakeholders to enable and empower regional farmers to produce more safe, affordable and nutritious food while promoting food safety best practices across the food value chain.

CropLife Asia began working with the EU-ASEAN Business Council (EU-ABC) and the US-ASEAN Business Council (US-ABC) in 2019 to conduct food and agriculture sector workshops on the topic of ‘Safe and Nutritious Food in ASEAN’. These sessions bring together food value chain stakeholders from government, civil society and industry to lead farm-to-fork conversations on efforts to ensure a safe and nutritious food supply in the region. To date, workshops have been conducted in Bangkok, Hanoi and Jakarta.

These workshops included best-practice panels where successes and setbacks in the various aspects and components of national food value chains were discussed. This was followed by an interactive session where public and private sector stakeholders highlighted areas within the supply chain where greater partnership would be beneficial to producing quality food.

A safe and secure food supply chain is crucial in supporting the world’s economy and trade. It also contributes to food and nutritional security which underpin sustainable development. With the world’s population expected to grow to nearly 10 billion in 2050, the increased demand for food will create both opportunities and challenges for food safety. Additionally, challenges such as climate change will put greater stress on our farmers, food producers and handlers to ensure safety from farm-to-fork.

“The challenges faced by the region’s farmers in ensuring food safety will continue to increase with the growing demand for food and intensification of agriculture,” said Dr. Siang Hee Tan, Executive Director of CropLife Asia. “It is therefore more crucial than ever that we meet our shared responsibility and make certain that our farmers are equipped to use crop protection and plant biotechnology innovations responsibly on the farm to produce safe food.”

To support safe food production at its source, CropLife Asia is committed to comprehensive product stewardship – a life cycle approach to responsible product management and the ethical use of crop protection products from their discovery, development, use and final waste disposal. CropLife Asia recognizes that a core aspect of stewardship is the training of farmers and distributors to ensure crop protection products are used correctly and disposed of safely. Between 2005-2015 alone, CropLife Asia and our members directly and indirectly trained more than 15 million men and women in the responsible use of crop protection in Asia.