An FAO expert consultation on The Dynamics of Sanitary and Technical Requirements: Assisting the Poor to Cope was held at the headquarters of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in Rome from 22 to 24 June 2004. Six experts provided working papers and participated in the consultation. A further two experts provided background notes. Members of the Pro-Poor Livestock Policy Initiative Steering Committee acted as observers providing additional inputs. A full list of participants is given in Annexe 1.
Ms Louise Fresco, Assistant Director-General, Agriculture Department of FAO, opened the consultation of behalf of FAO.
Ms Fresco noted that the meeting is timely as the Millennium Development Goals are being re-thought 10 years after Rio and the Brundtland report. There have been several declarations on food security and lately on food safety and biosecurity. The challenge is to find ways that these can be translated into concrete actions.
Ms Fresco reminded the meeting of ongoing FAO discussions on trade, food chain approaches and health and nutrition which relate to the subject of the consultation. It is important to consider ways to make trade work for the poor, and the way in which standards relate to this. There is a general concern about the existence of higher standards for the rich and lower for the poor, and a need to define how standards are being applied in practice differently to the way they were negotiated. FAO has adopted a food chain approach, accepted last year at CoAg. The food chain approach needs to build a new type of inter-disciplinarity and to take into account that innovations in the food chain will come from the consumer side, reflecting rapid changes in consumer demands in developing countries. FAO engages in the debate on health and nutrition as related to food. A further emphasis needs to be placed on linking poverty, trade and health aspects, for example how to look at maximum residue levels. These are delicate and politically loaded questions.
FAO needs to engage more in issues related to trade and biosecurity, capacity building, technical advice, policy advice and negotiation capacities in this varied area of animal production, trade, health. FAO works with academia but also has opened the doors to NGOs and the private sector and is moving away from rigid government intervention.
Mr J. Scudamore acted as Chairperson for the consultation. Ms A. McLeod (FAO, AGAL) acted as rapporteur.
