New publication shows how climate change affects food safety
While the effects of climate change on global food production and food security are widely known, the impacts on food safety are still not well understood. A new FAO publication, Climate change: Unpacking the burden on food safety, sets forth detailed scientific descriptions of how climate change is threatening the safety of food - sourced from both land and sea - and outlines how the exposure to a number of foodborne hazards could increase across the world.
“A single environmental factor like increase in temperature can trigger varying degrees of effect on different food hazards globally,” said Keya Mukherjee, FAO Food Safety and Quality Specialist, explaining that climate change can have an impact on the survival of foodborne pathogens and alter the occurrence patterns for contaminants like mycotoxins and heavy metals.
The changing climate has a direct impact on both chemical (e.g. heavy metals, pesticides, mycotoxins and algal bio-toxins) and microbiological (e.g. foodborne pathogens and parasites) hazards in food, the publication explains with sections dedicated to various hazards.
Climate change is also expected to lower the nutritional value in staple foods by reducing their levels of macro- and micro-nutrients. The combination of malnutrition, which reduces immunity and increases susceptibility to foodborne pathogens, together with higher risk of exposure to food hazards under climate change, creates a dire situation that needs urgent international attention.
“This is significant because unsafe food is not only detrimental to people’s health and food security, but also livelihoods, national economies and international trade,” Vittorio Fattori, FAO Food Safety and Quality Officer said.
The new FAO publication also offers some measures to foster preparedness for climate-related food safety challenges, both current and expected, and further stresses the need for strengthening monitoring and surveillance programmes to prevent and manage food safety risks.
“The future of food safety will require proactive and forward-looking approaches rather than relying on reactive measures,” said Fattori.
A holistic One Health approach to food safety will also be needed to harness the expertise and mobilize resources from a broad spectrum of sectors in order to protect public health and foster sustainable food production.
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Climate change: Unpacking the burden on food safety (2020)