The World Health Organization estimates that each year there are an estimated 2 million deaths worldwide from food and waterborne diseases, including many children. While foods and food processing equipment increasingly cross borders to reach foreign markets, implementation of preventive environmental food safety controls such as those in FSMA continues to be a challenge, especially in developing nations of the World with limited scientific and regulatory capacity. As food safety professionals we can save lives by working together globally to improve our methods of educating all countries on FSMA preventive controls from the farm to the fork. FSMA requires food safety measures that start at the grass root level and continue throughout the global supply chains to increase the harmonization of food safety specifications. Improved technical education can provide a deeper understanding of the hazards (microbiology, chemistry, etc.), preventive controls, documentation control and systems validation. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations is building capacity at the farm level; here Good Agricultural Practices and related farm systems must be translated and taught for compliance of FSMA. For example, FSMA stipulates addressing pathogens at the species and subspecies level. The International Food Information Council and United Nations Industrial Development Organization could be engaged to educate the global supply chain and accelerate sustainable adoption of FSMA standards at all levels. The symposium will present the current state from a global perspective, reveal differences in preventive control practices between countries and provide recommendations to better translate the needs for international adoption of the FSMA standards to improve public health and international trade.

Presentations