Need long-term strategy

(Baonghean) - Food safety and hygiene (FSH) is always a "hot" issue. It is hot because food poisoning cases often occur, either causing death or seriously affecting the health of consumers. It is urgent because, up to now, the prevention of unsafe food has not been as effective as expected.

Throughout the country, every day, every hour, dirty, poor quality foods still "silently" penetrate the market and appear in meals of families, collective kitchens, restaurants, hotels, street vendors... That is, they spread everywhere, at all times. There are dirty foods that cause immediate reactions in users. There are foods that accumulate in the human body and at some point develop into incurable diseases or can cause deformities and deformities for future generations.

Dangerous as it is, the ability of consumers and authorities to resist the wave of dirty food is almost ineffective. As mentioned above, dirty, poor quality food and even food and drinks containing toxic substances appear everywhere, especially in rural areas.

To let such a dangerous situation happen, it is not that we have not had full and proper recognition and concern about this issue. On the contrary, we have made great efforts with many activities and specific measures from propaganda, mobilization, warning to strict and severe inspection, control and handling. But we still have not been able to completely prevent poor quality food.

The main reason is that we cannot control the origin and quality of food. Imported food is also inspected at border gates by road, water and air.

As for domestically produced foods, it is almost impossible. Except for a few factories, enterprises, and food processing facilities that have registered their quality with management and quality control agencies according to the law, the rest are all left to their own devices.

Especially fresh foods that are brought directly from the farm to the market or from traditional processing facilities without any process or standards are completely left to chance. No one can control it all.

The reason is that, according to current regulations, goods brought into traditional markets, especially fresh goods sold directly to consumers, are not required to have labels or origin. Even goods imported officially into retail markets do not need to present these documents. Such regulations mean that if goods are brought into retail markets, their origin and origin are considered legalized.

Even if the authorities organize inspections at the market, they still cannot handle it. Therefore, to control the source of goods entering the market, the only way is to monitor at the source such as wholesale markets or wholesale establishments. But the point is that the source of goods entering the market is abundant, no one can control it all. Anyone who grows vegetables, raises chickens, makes cakes, candies, etc. all have the right to bring them to the market to sell.

So how can we control the origin of food? Without controlling the origin, we cannot ensure food safety.

Therefore, as it is now, ensuring food safety is always in a passive position. Running after a done deal. That means only checking and recalling low-quality foods sold on the market can be done, but not doing the very important part of preventing them from the source, not allowing unsafe foods to penetrate the market.

Therefore, to ensure food safety, in addition to the measures being implemented, a long-term strategy is needed to plan for good production, specifically for food products, it is necessary to apply a mechanism for tracing the origin and certifying the origin clearly so that when entering the market, the authorities can easily distinguish which goods are guaranteed and which are smuggled or of unknown origin.

At the same time, consumers themselves can easily distinguish the types and quality of goods to say “no” to goods that do not guarantee origin and quality. Without doing that, it is impossible to have food safety as desired.

Duy Huong