Food safety alerts that are not related to food safety or warnings about a food that are amplified and cause unnecessary economic damage. Also critical of a product without supporting evidence, like that launched a few months ago by former French minister Ségolène Royal, who described Spanish organic tomatoes as “inedible” and “fake organic”. In fact, socialist policy opened a diplomatic crisis, which had to be addressed by the President of the Government Pedro Sánchez, and which amplified the rural protests of last winter.
A few months after these demonstrations in the primary sector, in which more or less well-founded criticism was mixed, the food chain shows signs of having had enough of the messages which, according to it, generate “damage to the reputation of the sector” and a “lack of confidence”. » “We cannot continue like this,” say food distribution sources who prefer anonymity.
They refer to different cases, without giving precise names, but where the role of the operators is questioned. In some cases, there is a basis because potential risks were identified, but they did not materialize because the food alert system worked and prevented food from reaching consumers.
The case of contaminated strawberries
The aforementioned sources cite, for example, what happened in March with the presence in the European Union of strawberries from Morocco contaminated with hepatitis A. Then, the EU rapid alert system for Food and Feed (Rasff) notified entry into the Community market. of this fruit contaminated at a level higher than the maximum authorized. These strawberries never entered the Spanish agro-food chain – moreover, they were destined for other markets – but sales of strawberries in food stores fell between 10 and 15%, according to the aforementioned sources.
They also highlight messages about animal welfare which they say do not always influence food safety and can confuse consumers.
The sector recalls that the channel that channels this type of alerts is the Spanish Food Safety and Nutrition Agency, which publishes them on its website. Sometimes, they assume, with weeks of delay since some of these cases are amplified on social networks or in the media.
This situation, they emphasize, is “getting worse” and believe that it could lead to the alerts not being taken into account even though “the alerts are real”. For this reason, they demand that administrations assume “leadership in communication on food safety” in a “very solid system” and which is “among the best in the world”, but which presents defects and causes “damage to trust.” result in a drop in sales.
They also recall that there is no uniformity within the European Union when it comes to launching this type of alert and that a working group has been launched in Brussels to analyze the system alert and move towards better unification of criteria. Partly because the regulation which sets out the requirements of EU food law dates back to 2002 and has not been amended since.
Within the state administration there were also tensions. For example, the bitter struggle between the Ministries of Health and Agriculture for the control of food at the border, both animal and agricultural, left in the hands of the department led by Luis Planas.
Precisely, this ministry is currently in the midst of preparing the future National Food Strategy, which comes months after the farmers’ protests, but which goes further because it seeks to design transversal guidelines in terms of food production, security food, sustainability and nutrition. .
Currently, this strategy is in the design phase and the ministry is meeting with various players in the sector, notably distribution and, this Friday, agricultural organizations. The first assure that they have conveyed to Agriculture the need for greater leadership, on the part of the various ministries, in terms of food security, and to act through this future national strategy.
Whether or not we should open a debate on the alert system
Agricultural organizations emphasize that alerts that are not always well motivated and hoaxes transformed into news “harm all sectors” of the food chain, according to sources from the Union of Small Farmers and Breeders (UPA). “They have an interest behind them and are fattened by a certain element of truthfulness.” “These are very harmful strategies that must be reproduced with transparency, because we have the chain with the most control systems in the world,” adds one from the UPA. They also consider the collaboration of different administrations as essential, which must be strengthened.
At the same time, opening this debate can be positive, according to the Coordinator of Agrarian and Livestock Organizations (COAG). “We should open it up, overhaul the distribution system, the notices and the alerts.” Certain advertisements, which are sometimes “fake news”, hit the primary sector because they lead to a drop in prices at source.
It should be remembered that part of the producing sector signed in March an agreement of 43 measures with Agriculture which includes a “strengthening of border controls on imports from third countries”, often accused of not achieving the same security levels as these. produced in the EU and its food safety guarantees have been questioned. In this agreement, the government committed to strengthening “the coordination of border inspection services, with the aim of improving the efficiency and security of controls, as well as border protection against imports that do not comply with Community regulations”.
