Webinar to discuss the impacts of climate change on food safety

Record-breaking temperatures, droughts, wildfires, hurricanes, melting glaciers and rising sea levels make the news in countries around the world. All too often we experience extreme weather events. We may be aware of the implications they have on the production or availability of food, but what about its safety?

To answer this question, earlier this year FAO published Climate change: Unpacking the burden on food safety, an update of a 2008 study. This compilation of current information shows the effects that climate change has on various food safety hazards and quantifies them, where possible. Climate change may increase consumers’ exposure to microbiological or chemical contaminants through food, whether it originates from land, sea, plants or animals. A single aspect of climate change such as increasing temperature can for example alter the virulence of food- and waterborne pathogens, as well as the occurrence patterns of contaminants like mycotoxins or marine toxins. A number of the regions facing these challenges for the first time lack the capacity to manage outbreaks, making it difficult to mitigate damage to local economies and public health.

Managing food safety risks requires the collaboration of all relevant actors in the food chain – including government bodies, public health and veterinary authorities, plant pathologists, ecologists, national laboratories, farmers, food business operators, non-governmental organizations and consumers. Establishing effective food safety systems in the context of a changing climate is vital to ensuring the safety of national food supplies as well as food products for export.

This webinar will look at both the threats and potential solutions.

Objectives of the webinar

• Draw attention to the ways climate change affects food safety.
• Discuss how unsafe food harms health and impedes progress.
• Consider One Health-based solutions to cross-sectoral issues such as climate change impacts on food safety.
  
  

Programme

Welcome
Jamie Morrison, Director, Food Systems and Food Safety Division, FAO 

Video
How climate change affects the safety of food 

Opening remarks
Zitouni Ould-Dada, Deputy Director, Office of Climate Change, Biodiversity and Environment, FAO

The implications of climate change for food safety
Vittorio Fattori, Food Safety Officer, and Keya Mukherjee, Food Safety Specialist, FAO 

How climate change is affecting food safety in the Caribbean
Renata Clarke, Sub-regional Coordinator for the Caribbean, FAO

Is the future of food security safe? Food safety challenges for smallholder farmers
Margarita Astralaga, Director, Environment, Climate, Gender and Social Inclusion Division, IFAD

Connecting climate-impacts on food safety with effects on food systems
Maria Cristina Tirado-von der Pahlen, Climate Change, Food and Sustainability Policy Lecturer, Loyola Marymount University, United States of America 

Q&A
Moderator: Markus Lipp, Senior Food Safety Officer, FAO

Closing remarks
Markus Lipp

Date: 17 November 2020

Time: 15:00-16:30 CET

Register here for the webinar

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