COFI:FT/VIII/2002/9 |
| COFI:FT/VIII/2002/9 |
Item 10 of the Provisional Agenda |
COMMITTEE ON FISHERIES |
SUB-COMMITTEE ON FISH TRADE |
Eighth Session |
Bremen, Germany, 12-16 February 2002 |
SAFETY, QUALITY AND FISH TRADE |
1. During its Seventh Session (2000), the Sub-Committee on Fish Trade highlighted the need for a more rapid harmonization of fish safety and quality standards in accordance with the rules of the Agreements on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS) as well as on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT). Likewise, it underscored the increased use of risk assessment and the implications thereof on the institutional capabilities of the exporting countries and expressed the view that FAO has a role to play in risk analysis in collaboration with the Codex. It identified the need to study the development of the new risk approach to foster research in practical Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) system application in cooperation with the Codex Alimentarius Commission (CAC).
2. The increasing demand for fish and fishery products, coupled to technological developments in fish handling, preservation and distribution and the increasing awareness and demand of consumers for safe and high quality fish have led many countries to undertake a comprehensive evaluation and reorganization of their fish inspection and control systems in order to improve efficiency, rationalize the use of human resources and harmonize approaches.
3. Worldwide, this search for harmonization has resulted in the convergence towards the necessity to shift from the traditional approach that relied heavily on end-product sampling and inspection and to move towards the implementation of a preventative safety and quality approach based on risk analysis and on the principles of the HACCP system. The main thrust of this approach is its objective-oriented rather than prescriptive focus, its scientific basis, ability to take into account scientific and technological developments, its gradual applicability from sea to table and the necessity and framework for the consultation of all the stakeholders in a transparent manner.
4. At the national level, four major stakeholders need to work synergistically for the implementation of this preventative safety and quality approach. These stakeholders are the fishery industry, the fish control authority, the support institutions and the consumer and consumer advocate groups. The fishery industry should upgrade handling and processing facilities and know-how, and implement the hygienic, Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) and HACCP requirements. The fish control authority should update the fish quality and safety legislation, re-organize the control services, train personnel and upgrade the control facilities and laboratories. The support institutions (academia, trade associations, private sector, etc.) should train industry and control authority staff, conduct research on quality, safety and risk assessment and provide technical support in these areas. Finally, consumers and consumer advocate groups have a counterbalancing role to ensure that safety and quality are not undermined by political and socio-economical considerations solely when drafting legislation or implementing safety and quality policies. They also have a major role in educating and informing the consumer about the major safety and quality issues.
5. At the regional and international levels, economic groupings and international organizations have enacted agreements, regulations and standards to enable countries and regional groupings to implement this fish quality and safety approach to provide the appropriate level of consumer protection without constituting disguised trade barriers. Further cooperation is required for a more harmonized, transparent and scientifically based approach.
6. The Organizations that play a major role in setting up the international framework for fish safety and quality are the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the WHO/FAO Codex Alimentarius Commission (CAC).
7. Two WTO binding agreements (the Agreement on the Application of SPS Measures and the Agreement on TBT) have significant implications in fish safety and quality.
8. The SPS agreement confirms the right of WTO member countries to apply measures necessary to protect human, animal and plant life and health. The purpose of the SPS Agreement is to ensure that measures established by governments to protect human, animal and plant life and health, in the agricultural sector, including fisheries, are consistent with obligations prohibiting arbitrary or unjustifiable discrimination on trade between countries where the same conditions prevail and are not disguised restrictions on international trade.
9. It requires that, with regard to food safety measures, WTO members base their national measures on international standards, guidelines and other recommendations adopted by the CAC where they exist. This does not prevent a member country from adopting stricter measures if there is a scientific justification for doing so, or if the level of protection afforded by the Codex standard is inconsistent with the level of protection generally applied and deemed appropriate by the country concerned.
10. The SPS Agreement states that any measures taken that conform to international Codex standards, guidelines or recommendations are deemed to be appropriate, necessary and not discriminatory. Finally, the SPS Agreement requires that SPS measures are to be based on an assessment of the risks to humans, animal and plant life using internationally accepted risk assessment techniques.
11. The objective of the TBT Agreement is to prevent the use of national or regional technical requirements, or standards in general, as unjustified technical barriers to trade. The agreement covers standards relating to all types of products including industrial products and quality requirements for foods (except requirements related to SPS measures). It includes numerous measures designed to protect the consumer against deception and economic fraud.
12. The TBT Agreement basically provides that all technical standards and regulations must have a legitimate purpose and that the impact or cost of implementing the standard must be proportional to the purpose of the standard. It also states that, if there are two or more ways of achieving the same objective, the least trade restrictive alternative should be followed. The agreement also places emphasis on international standards, WTO members being obliged to use international standards or parts of them except where the international standard would be ineffective or inappropriate in the national situation.
13. The aspects of food standards that TBT requirements cover specifically are quality provisions, nutritional requirements, labelling, packaging and product content regulations, and methods of analysis. Unlike the SPS Agreement, the TBT Agreement does not specifically name international standard setting bodies, whose standards are to be used as benchmarks for judging compliance with the provisions of the Agreement.
14. The FAO Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries, which was unanimously adopted on 31 October 1995 by the 28th Session of the FAO Conference, has endorsed the principles embodied in the WTO agreements and the CAC approach. Article 6 (General principles, provisions 6.7 and 6.14) and article 11 (Post-harvest practices and trade) are of particular relevance to fish trade, safety and quality. Provisions 11.1.2, 11.1.3 and 11.1.4 encourage States to establish and maintain effective national safety and quality assurance systems, to promote the implementation of the CAC standards and codes of practice and cooperate to achieve harmonization or mutual recognition, or both, of national sanitary measures and certification programmes.
15. The FAO Department of Fisheries (FI), mainly through extra-budgetary funding received from Denmark, was able to train more than 1300 professionals from Government and industry in fish quality and safety systems during the period 1995-1999. This contributed to the fact that the current (August 2001) EU list I of third countries from which import of fish for human consumption is authorized totals 58 of which 47 are from the developing world. However, the need for further training is ever increasing, especially in the areas of HACCP implementation and assessment and risk analysis. In this respect, FI is seeking extra-budgetary funds to meet the increasing demand in these fields.
16. FI was also involved in the FAO umbrella training programme on multilateral trade negotiations in agriculture, fisheries and forestry, especially in regions where fisheries are important. An initial series of fourteen sub-regional workshops was completed in July 2001. This programme was supplemented with a series of five training workshops on the implications of the WTO agreements on fish trade, organized by FI through its Info Services in Asia (INFOFISH), China (INFOYU), Latin America (INFOPESCA), the Arab Region (INFOSAMAK) and very soon Africa (INFOPECHE).
17. In the area of risk analysis, risk assessment of microbiological hazards in foods has been identified as a priority area of work for the CAC. FAO (including FI) and WHO, jointly launched a programme of work with the objective of providing expert advice on risk assessment of microbiological hazards in foods to their Member countries and to the CAC. FI has initiated a series of studies and training courses on the application of microbiological risk assessment in the fish industry.
18. Finally, faced with increasing requests for the dissemination of timely and relevant information on fish safety and quality, FI is developing a web-based seafood safety system. The outputs will be in the form of focused, pertinent and usable technical papers, training material, expert consultation reports, fact sheets, and valid and verifiable grey literature. This approach should enable FAO to play a catalytic role for timely transfer of high value scientific information from reputed fish research institutions into the developing world, while ensuring proper information quality assurance.
19. The globalization and further liberalization of world fish trade, while offering many benefits and opportunities, also presents new safety and quality challenges. Fish safety and quality assurance in the new millennium will require enhanced levels of international cooperation in setting up standards and regulations. The SPS/TBT agreements of the WTO and the benchmarking role of the Codex Alimentarius Commission provide an international platform in this respect.
20. However, in this field, developing countries are at a disadvantage because of insufficient/inadequate national capacities and resources. Further assistance is needed to build capacity in HACCP and risk analysis and to develop a web-based global fish safety and quality information system that will provide timely and relevant scientific and technical information in this field.
21. In several ways, import regulations differ as to whether HACCP should address safety issues only (USA) or safety and quality (EU). The question has been debated at the Codex Committee on Fish and Fishery Products (CCFFP) and the draft Code of Practice (at step 3) integrates both safety and quality. In general, government inspectors' concerns are two-fold. Integrating fish safety and quality may divert the industry from the important safety issues and require more human resources from Governments for verification. Whereas the industry claims that having to meet the safety requirements but also quality requirements of the trading partners, it is more cost-effective to integrate both under the same HACCP system. It makes sense from a fish processing technology standpoint, because most hazards or quality defects are often controlled by the same control/preventative measures.
22. The Sub-Committee may wish to discuss the implications of safety and quality on fish trade, both domestically and internationally. The Sub-Committee should comment on the work of FAO and recommend directions for HACCP implementation, capacity building in risk analysis and global fish safety information.