KARACHI, Aug 6: Food scientists at a workshop on Saturday urged value-adding food industries in developing countries to ensure good manufacturing practices and food safety measures for development and international acceptance of agriculture and agribusinesses of their respective countries.

Local and foreign scientists were speaking at the inauguration of a three-day training programme on food safety issues, sanitation and hygiene and processing requirements, jointly organised by the University of Karachi and the Pakistan Society for Microbiology.

The training programme has been developed for academia and industry representatives under the Trilateral Commission's Trade Corridor Working Group comprising Pakistan, Afghanistan and the USA with the support of the USDA-Foreign Agriculture Service.

Karachi University pro-vice chancellor Dr Shahana Urooj Kazmi in her opening remarks said that the food safety was a big issue in developing countries, including Pakistan, where industries were finding it difficult to export their value-added agro-based products, including fisheries and fruit, particularly in the wake of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules, increasing environment and sanitation concerns and adulteration checks.

Export or import of food involved certain regulations and as such it was important for industries and their managers concerned to know about food safety practices right from the farm to the factory and export houses, she said and stressed the need for a proper training and updates for the food scientists and analysts in the country.

She refereed to some reports on excessive use of pesticides in fields, mixing of chemicals in baby food products and concerns about poultry feeds and called for exercising extreme care.

“It is important to eat healthy food and as such we need to have food safety management in our industries to ensure that the product inside a box is safe and fit for consumption,” she said.

Prof (Dr) Gleyn Bledsoe of the University of Idaho, the training programme instructor, said that the programme was a collaborative effort of the University of Agriculture Faisalabad and the University of Karachi and University of Idaho, US, and it was part of the agricultural trilateral commission.

The commission had the mission to assist Afghanistan and Pakistan to develop long-range plans for development of agriculture and agribusiness and to recommend the US funded activities to support those plans.

He further said that the purpose of the training programme was to develop a cadre of qualified and certified instructors at agriculture universities, regulating agencies and industry, including the producers and marketing associations, in Afghanistan and Pakistan, who would act as master trainers.

He said that there was a great need to have methodologies proven most effective in developing countries.

A master-list of the instructors coming out of the USDA sponsored training programme would be maintained and be made available to regulators and the private sector.

According to him, components of a food safety programme were good manufacturing practices, hazard analysis and critical control points (HACCP) principles and sanitation standard operation plan.

Prof (Dr) Barbara Rasco of the Washington State University said that HACCP principles included 1) conduct a hazard analysis 2) determine the critical control points 3) establish the critical limits 4) establish monitoring procedures 5) establish corrective actions 6) establish verification procedures 7) establish record keeping procedures.

She said that good manufacturing practices (GMPs) were the basis for determining if facilities and equipment design, construction and maintenance, and processing methods were appropriate to ensure that the food was processed under sanitary conditions.

Any intentional and unintentional source of contamination was needed to be controlled, she stressed.

She further said that good agriculture practices should be developed and implemented so that the ingredients used to make processed foods were safe and hygienic.

Microbial and chemical contaminations were controlled by monitoring inputs like irrigation water, agricultural chemical use, introduction of pests and workers hygiene, she added.