NESG, Ministry Hold Food Safety Dialogue

The Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG) in partnership with Federal Ministry of Health and other partners has concluded plans to hold the Nigerian Food and Feed Safety Transformation dialogue between this Tuesday, 13th and 14th of December, 2022.

The dialogue will be the first in a series of dialogues in the development of a roadmap of capacity building activities in support of Nigeria’s food and feed safety modernization efforts in Abuja.

The food industry in Nigeria is highly regulated. The country operates a multiple-agency food safety control system which is mostly sectoral. Food safety legislation is also fragmented between the three tiers of government: federal, state, and local governments.

Other partners are Food & Agriculture Export Alliance (FAEA), the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), the University of Missouri (UoM), and AGRA.

The major challenges facing the enhancement of food safety in the country include a lack of awareness of the socio-economic importance of food safety, paucity of data and information on the incidence of food-borne disease outbreaks, lack of understanding of food safety and quality standards as outlined in international agreements.

Other issues are inability to enforce compliance with international standards and global best practices, inadequate infrastructure and resources to support scientific risk analysis and upgrading of food safety regulatory systems, inefficient food supply chain and poor traceability system.

The NESG in a yesterday said there is an urgent need to strengthen the existing food safety system at each enterprise level at the federal, state, and local government area platforms in order to develop a safe and reliable food supply chain.

“The need to re-align Nigeria’s food safety system to effectively address food safety concerns have now, more than ever, become evident,” the think-tank said.

The idea is to come up with ways to make Nigeria meet its food safety requirements as well as generating further revenue from exports of safe and nutritious food products within the West African region and globally.

The proposed meeting will bring together relevant stakeholders from both the public and private sectors in Nigeria as well as United States food safety regulatory experts to discuss experiences and approaches in regulatory reform and implementation in the food and feed safety subsector; as well as provide primary insights and input for a multi-year roadmap for technical cooperation.

Topics for discussion include food trade, risk management, traceability, and food inspection.