Food safety in an

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• Food safety in an
• organic perspective
• 14th IFOAM Congress, Victoria, Canada
• August 22nd 2002
• Erik Steen Kristensen, Research director, Ph.D.
  agri.Danish Research Centre for Organic Farming
  (DARCOF)

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Danish Research Centre for Organic Farming DARCOF

• Co-ordinates danish research in organic farming
• Budget of 5.5 mill. Euro per year
• Centre with-out walls
• 140 researchers from 20 institutes
• 42 research projects covering topics of plant-
  and livestock production, agriculture and society
  (environment, economy etc.)

More info www.darcof.dk
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Outline

• Definition of food safety
• Food safety in the product
• Food safety in the agri-food system
• Conclusions
• Perspectives for further development

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Agri-food safety problems

• Discovery of animals with BSE
• Increased occurrence of Salmonella in meat and
  eggs
• Increased occurrence of campylobacter in meat
• Listeria in dairy products
• Increased occurrence of dioxin in food and fodder
• Too high amounts of pesticides, antibiotics,
  additives etc. in food
• Toxic fungi in food from stocks
• Food criminality vine containing wood alcohol,
  polluted cooking oil etc.
• Pollution of drinking water with pesticides and
  nitrate
• GMO polluted organic food products
• swindle sale of conventional products as organic

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Consumer concerns, Eurobarometer

• 68 of Europeans are concerned about safety of
  food
• Consumers are most concerned about
• Labelling
• Traceability of foodstuffs
• GMO

Genevni (2001)
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• The DSR frame-workfor under-standing food safety

Responses

• Farm input/output of N
• Pesticides input use
• Animal feeding and treatment
• Consumer perceptions
• Technology
• Specialisation

• Content of elements in the food
• Labels of the food type

Driving forces
State
modified from OECD (1997)
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Definition of food safety

• Agri-food system safety
• safety of supply
• safety of distribution
• safety for transparency and nearness
• safety for influence
• safety for information
• safety for no negative impacts on humans, other
  living organism, environment etc.

Product safety

• safety for non-illness of the food
• safety for healthy food
• safety of the declaration
• safety of the label

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Positive and negative consequences for health and
safety in plant products
Modified from ODoherty Jensen et al. (2001)
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The Danish consumption of pesticides in food
(?g per day )
Büchert (1998)
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Positive and negative consequences for health and
safety in animal products
Modified from ODoherty Jensen et al. (2001)
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The consumption of antibiotics in Danish
agriculture in 1996
Bennedsgaard et al. (1998)
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Conclusions

• Health and food safety are important motives to
  buy organic food
• Food safety product and agri-food system safety
• Product safety tend to be higher in organic
  farming
• lower N-level ? lower nitrate content
• ban of pesticides ? no pesticide residues
• no prophylactics, double retention time ? lower
  residues of medicine
• Agri-food system safety tend to be higher in
  organic farming
• more nearness and transparency from farmer to
  consumer
• more information through labelling of organic
  food
• lower impact on the environment

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Basic principles of organic farming

• principle of circulation
• principle of precaution
• principle of nearness