Environmental Issues

Food safety is a scientific discipline that describes the handling, preparation and storage of food in ways that prevent food borne illness. This includes a number of routines that need to be followed to avoid potentially severe health risks. Food can transmit diseases from person to person as well as serve as a growth medium for bacteria that causes food poisoning. There are currently debates on genetic food safety on issues such as the impact of genetically modified food on health of future generations as well as the genetic pollution of tee environment which can destroy biodiversity.

Recent trends in global food production, processing and preparation are creating an increasing demand for food safety research in order to ensure a safer global food supply with further emphasis being placed on nutritional value of certain food components and the causal effects of chronic illnesses (Hillers, 1997, pp.5-11).

Food Safety Regulation in the United States
Food safety is a problem that has become a major focus in the world today mostly due to high frequencies in food accidents. In the United States, Food safety regulation is covered by The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Environmental Protective Agency (EPA). The FDA is responsible for most of the food safety supervision under the authority of FFDCA and other laws the USDA is responsible for inspecting the safety of meat, eggs, animal and plant pest control, including the inspection of pest and animal quarantine. The EPA on the other hand is responsible for pesticide management. These institutions play a very important role on the food safety of different types and stages.

The United States also has a number of laws and regulation relating to food safety which consist of the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act the Federal Meat Inspection Act Poultry Products Inspection Act Egg Products Inspection Act Food Quality Protection Act and Public Health Service Act. In addition, the features of U.S Food Quality and safety system are the Government (President), Congress, and the court. The system follows the principles that only healthy and safe food can be sold in the market decisions on food quality and safety are made on a scientific basis the government has a mandatory duty to require manufacturers, distributors, importers and others to comply with food laws and regulations the coordination process is transparent and the public can participate ((Trienekens  Zuurbier, 2008, pp. 107-122)).

Food Safety Regulation in the Europe Union
The European Union has gradually developed a General Food Law, Food Sanitation and twenty other food safety regulations to coordinate the food safety regulatory system in EU countries. A series of food safety regulatory requirements, including animal and plant disease control, the control of drug residues, food production hygienic practices, access to imported food control, official monitoring among others. It formally established the European Food Quality and Safety Authority. Presently, the EU food quality and safety control policy is based primarily on EU Food Law. The EU White Paper on Food Safety points out that the main objective of the Food Law is food quality safety. The law is based on controlling the whole process from farm to table, including the general animal husbandry methods, animal health care, contaminants and pesticide residues, new food, additives, flavor, packaging, radiation, feed production, responsibility of farmers and food producer, as well as various agricultural measures.

Food Safety Management Systems in the Developing Countries
People residing in developing countries face a higher level of exposure to contaminated foodstuffs than those living in First World countries since the tropical climate favors the proliferation of pests and naturally occurring toxins, the water supplies used to clean and process food are frequently unsafe and regulatory standards are either lower or less well enforced. The reason for an increase in food safety management stems in part from a rash prominent of food scares due to outbreaks of Salmonella, E. Coli, and Bovine spongiform Encephalopathy (Otsuki, Wison  Sewadeh, 2001, pp.495-514). Other issues affecting Developing countries in matters relating to food safety management include

A tightening of standards in the North, this is in response to increasing consumer concerns about food safety. Europe, US and Japan have therefore continuously raised the bar that food supplies need to meet stipulated standards so as to be sold in their markets a reorientation of quality assurance methods. The Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points, and the farm to fork strategies lie in this category (Unnevehr  Jensen, 1996, pp.765-767).These control microbial contamination of food and quality management in the supply chain respectively a shift from end product to process based regulatory standards. Increasingly, regulatory bodies are shifting from measures targeting outcomes to process based measures (Jongwanich, 2009, pp.447-457) an increase in the role of the civil society greater scrutiny of scientific methods and risk assessment. This involves the identification and characterization of hazards, the assessment of populations exposure to these hazards tougher requirements for laboratory analysis (Ropkins  Beck, 2000, p.12).

The SPS measures are not protectionist in intent however, they pose clear, specific difficulties for poorer countries. In particular, poorer countries are handicapped by more limited access to scientific and technical expertise and information needed to meet new requirements. Moreover, the prevailing production and marketing conditions in developing countries are incompatible with SPS requirements (Tjaart, 2005. pp. 492-494).

Quality assurance systems provide an account of the transformation of private sector approaches to quality management. The International Standards Organization helps to accredit quality assurance in Total Quality Management, Good Practices and HACCP especially in the supply chains. Developing countries however lag behind such options to improve the quality of standards in their home countries (Burlingame  Pineiro, 2007, pp.139-146).

From the above information, it can be ascertained that poor countries are faced with far much greater challenges while attempting to address food safety management both locally and internationally. Factors such as lack of expertise, lack of knowledge and incapacitation resulting in lack of funds as well as stringent measures put in place by the developed world are continuously crippling such efforts.

Several developing countries, in efforts of meeting international food safety management, stepped up their regulatory systems to incorporate such mechanisms. The Arab Gulf Cooperation Council has for example established food control systems based on stipulated guidelines for evaluation of food control practices (Al-Kandari  Jukes, pp.1112-1118). The other is Taiwan, Jeng  Fang (2003) expound on this by explaining that regulation of food safety system on country level particularly for factories that export agricultural products has been stepped up in this country (pp.317-322).