Safety first – the adage rings true when it comes to the food we eat. “One in ten people fall ill from contaminated food each year,” said Naoko Yamamoto, the World Health Organization’s Assistant Director-General for Universal Health Coverage and Health Systems in a video statement. “Perhaps we don’t hear much about foodborne diseases, but their public health burden is comparable to that of malaria or HIV/AIDS.”
On this World Food Safety Day, 7 June – celebrating “Safer food, better health” – the IAEA is raising awareness of the role isotopic and other nuclear techniques play in ensuring the food we eat is safe to consume. The IAEA, in collaboration with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), builds capacity around the world in the use of these techniques and also supports the latest developments in applying ionizing radiation to help food products stay fresh and free of invasive pests.
“In the complex journey of foods, from farm to fork, nuclear techniques can contribute to food safety,” said Andrew Cannavan, Head of the Food Safety and Control Section at the Joint FAO/IAEA Centre of Nuclear Techniques in Food and Agriculture. Nuclear technology and related analytical techniques are transferred to countries through the IAEA’s technical cooperation programme and are further developed through its coordinated research activities. “These countries become equipped with skills to expand and adapt techniques to different scenarios and to perform food safety research themselves,” he added.