Current activities

• FAO facilitates an informal network of developing countries to share information, knowledge and experience in using WGS for food safety management. Participating countries include: Bangladesh, Bhutan, Botswana, China, Egypt, Ghana, India, Iran, Mauritius, Mongolia, Mozambique, Namibia, Philippines, Sudan, Tanzania, Thailand, Vietnam (as of 1 August 2018, 20 people from 17 countries are participating). Contact [email protected] to join the network.
• FAO supports non-profit technical initiatives working on WGS and food safety, such as Global Microbial Identifier and PulseNet International.
  • Global Microbial Identifier (GMI): FAO, together with its partner agencies such as WHO and OIE, is sitting in the steering committee of GMI to ensure all countries, including developing countries and transition countries, will benefit from this potentially powerful technology that is applicable to food safety management.
  • PulseNet International: PulseNet International is a global laboratory network dedicated to foodborne disease surveillance and outbreak detection. This international network envisions the standardised use of WGS to identify and subtype foodborne bacterial pathogens worldwide, replacing traditional methods. Standardized methods for analyzing foodborne disease WGS data are required for international comparability in a timely and consistent manner. Furthermore, freely available bioinformatic tools and databases are necessary so that all countries can use these internationally standardized methods in real time. FAO regularly attends the PulseNet technical meetings to support their initiatives to design and build the system that has a potential in being converted into an internationally standardized system. Currently, analysis schemes are being validated by this partnership for application to foodborne pathogens Listeria, Salmonella, E. coli, Shigella, and Campylobacter. Additional activities are presently focused on ensuring the availability of the tools to all countries in a sustainable manner.

Past activities

• FAO collaborated with WHO to organize a meeting entitled "New science for food safety: supporting food chain transparency for improved health - An INFOSAN meeting on regional perspectives of food science developments in Asia" on 7-10 November 2016 at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.
• FAO held a Special session on the Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS): A global perspective targetted towards the food industry during the webinar series organized by the American Frozen Foods Institute (AFFI) in collaboration with the Alliance for Listeriosis Prevention. The Summary of the webinar can be found here.
• A side event at the occasion of the 25th session  of Committee of Agriculture (COAG) was held on the topic of Application of Genome Sequencing for sustainable agriculture and food security on 20 September 2016 at FAO Headquarters, Rome, Italy. The final report is available here. To view the presentations given at the side event,  please click here.
  • Overview and Food Safety Sector (Dr Masami Takeuchi)
  • Animal Health Sector (Dr Gwenaelle Dauphin)
  • International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources (Mr Francisco Lopez) and issues relevant to the Nagoya Protocol (Mr Daniel Manzella)
  • Agriculture using nuclear and related technology (Dr Kathiravan Periasamy)
• FAO held an FAO Special Session on the Applications on Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS) for food safety: benefits and potential drawbacks, with special considerations for developing countries at the IUFoST Congress 2016 in Dublin, Ireland on 22 August 2016.
• A side event at the occasion of the 39th session of Codex Alimentarius Commission was held on the topic of WGS and food safety: potential relevance to the work of Codex on 28 June 2016 at FAO Headquarters, Rome, Italy. The final report is available here.
• Technical Meeting on the impact of WGS on food safety management was held together with the 9th meeting of Global Microbial Identifier (GMI 9) on 23-25 May 2016 in Rome, Italy. The presentations of the FAO session on Day 1 and the presentations of the GMI session on Day 2 and Day 3 are available. The final report is available here. 
• Technical Meeting on the impact of WGS on food safety management: Pre-Meeting webpage 
• Expert workshop on practical applications of WGS on food safety management was held on 7-8 December 2015 in Rome, Italy. The Workshop proceedings as well as the presentations delivered during the workshop are available here.

General information

Genome sequencing can identify microorganisms with previously unknown accuracy; this unsurpassed capability together with declining operating costs will fundamentally change food safety management in the years to come. Genome sequencing is already established in the areas of plant/animal breeding, and in animal health to understand and characterize the pathogenicity of viruses. In the area of outbreak investigation of food-borne illness, certain high-income countries demonstrated great success in quickly and precisely targeting the source of the outbreak and limit the negative impact of the outbreak on public health and on trade.

Outside high-income countries, the level of understanding regarding benefits and implications concerning the use of genome sequencing in the area of food safety significantly varies. Particularly for developing countries, there are capacity, regulatory and resource implications to be considered. While several industralized countries have been moving forward with the technology, information on potential benefits, possible drawbacks, relevant challenges and considerations need to be analysed, with careful attention to developing and transitional countries with possibly limited capacity and resources.

It is a role of FAO's to keep all Members informed on the latest scientific developments in the food and agriculture sectors, and provide technical assistance to those who need it.

Key outputs

• Final Meeting Report: Technical Meeting on the impact of Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS) on food safety management: within a One Health approach
• Technical paper: Applications of Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS) in food safety management
• FAO Food Safety and Quality Highlight: Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS) for Food Safety (June 2016)

For more information, please contact [email protected].