In 1976 a Coordinating Committee for Latin America, established by the 10th Codex Alimentarius Commission in 1974, held its first meeting in Rome with eight countries from the region in attendance. At its third session a proposal was made to change the name of the committee to its current form (Coordinating Committee for Latin America and the Caribbean) as this better reflected the membership of the region. In 1984 at its 31st session, the Executive Committee, acting on behalf of the Commission, agreed to this change.
The region of Latin America and the Caribbean is an important actor in the production and trade of food at a global level. The region produces enough food to supply itself and to export, with both water and land resources to produce even more.
The region has enormous natural wealth, a flourishing agricultural industry and a family farming sector that is essential for its population. The promotion and strengthening of food safety must be continued at the level of all regions to guarantee the health of consumers and fair and equitable trade.
Uruguay, through the Ministry of Industry, Energy and Mining, coordinates the FAO/WHO Coordinating Committee for the Latin American and Caribbean region. In this role, Uruguay promotes the inclusive and sustained participation of the countries of the region in the work of Codex, fostering technical dialogue, regional cooperation and consensus building.
In line with the objectives of the Codex Strategic Plans, including the periods 2020–2025 and 2026–2031, Uruguay actively collaborates to achieve regional goals. This is achieved through capacity building, promoting the use of Codex texts, providing technical support to member countries, and coordinating with international organisations. In addition, Uruguay promotes the addressing of emerging challenges in food safety and quality, promoting integrative approaches such as ‘One Health’ and more effective participation by developing countries in the Commission and its subsidiary bodies.
To celebrate World Food Safety Day, Nicaragua has been promoting an initiative to increase the visibility of food safety and its importance, through the creation of murals in health centers of 153 municipalities nationwide.
The murals reflect the degree of commitment of the country towards Food Safety and the importance of raising awareness among the population, with the message that "Food Safety is everyone's business". The murals highlight important aspects such as hand washing and the five keys to food safety.
Other [...]
The Chilean Codex Alimentarius Secretariat, ACHIPIA, organized a seminar on 5 June 2019 entitled “Codex Alimentarius: Strengthening food safety in trade”. The aim was to attract and increase the participation of different sectors of the food industry in the national sub-committees. Speakers from the food industry association explained to participants how Codex standards and their application in production processes, help them in complying with national and international regulations on food safety and facilitating food trade, using concrete examples in which [...]
The Codex Committee on Food Hygiene (CCFH) is gathering for the 50th time. This year the meeting, chaired by the United States of America, is co-hosted by Panama, whose Vice Minister of Health, Eric Ulloa, set the tone for the week-long meeting. “Challenges are ahead,” he told the Committee, outlining the forward-looking agenda, which includes: revising one of the earliest Codex standards (the General Principles of Food Hygiene) and covering new topics, such as allergen management, microbiological foodborne outbreak management [...]
Codex Members of the Latin America and the Caribbean region met in Panama City on 11 November 2018 to discuss the draft Codex Strategic Plan (2020-2025). Organized by the regional coordinator, Chile, the meeting brought together 22 participants from 11 countries, who were attending the Codex Committee on Food Hygiene.
Constanza Vergara of Chile led the meeting on behalf of the Regional Coordinator. In light of the experience of the participants in Codex standard-setting and implementation, the meeting served as an [...]
Earlier this year, the Codex Secretariat launched a series of workshops in the six Codex regions that are having a direct impact on the operational capacity of countries to engage in the standard-setting process. More participants are now expressing national positions via the Online Commenting System (OCS) and the Digital platform for Electronic Working Groups.
Linked to the workshops, the Codex Secretariat is currently holding a series of follow-up webinars tailored to users’ requests and may include the use of the OCS and [...]
Constanza Vergara and Claudio Canales of the Chilean Codex Committee (ACHIPIA) used a methodology that combines science with creativity to build the capacity of food safety risk managers and communicators to analyse risks in a workshop on 28-30 August in Santo Domingo. The training session was part of the twinning programme of the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) aimed at strengthening the Codex Alimentarius in the region.
"We believe that the experience of Chile will be very useful to [...]
Honduran officials of the Ministry of Economic Development, the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock, the Ministry of Health, the Agency for Health Regulation and the Honduran Organization of Normalization joined the national Codex Contact Point and others in Tegucigalpa to announce the start of a Codex Trust Fund 2 project. On 18-19 July two events were held to launch the efforts to strengthen food safety and international trade: a launch event complete with the signing of an inter-institutional Letter of [...]
https://youtu.be/PSDcD-LqmO4
The 41st session of the Commission finished last week and the CCLAC region led by their coordinator Diego Varela from Chile put together a videoblog which provides a fascinating behind the scenes look at the week from their perspective.
With such a varied mix of countries in CCLAC it was great to see active participation and discussion especially around issues such as the standard for quinoa that is so relevant to Latin America.
We look forward to hearing much more from Chile [...]
On Thursday and Friday 24-25 May, 40 participants from 26 of the 33 countries in the Latin America and the Caribbean (CCLAC) region gathered in Asunción, Paraguay for training on the online web tools that form a central part of food safety standards development in Codex.
Following successful workshops in Nairobi and Dakar, this third leg in the series of regional programmes in Paraguay was a valuable opportunity for those working in national standard setting structures and for Codex Contact Points [...]
Today at an event organised by Codex at FAO HQ in Rome, Ms Geannina Dinarte Romero, Minister for Economy, Industry and Commerce of Costa Rica, called on countries to support the initiative for a World Food Safety Day that would signal the right for all people to have access to safe and nutritious food in sufficient quantity.
There can be no food security, no zero hunger without food safety
The Director-General of FAO Mr José Graziano da Silva, opening the meeting, stated [...]
