APEC FSCF PTIN
Food Safety Cooperation Forum Partnership Training Institute Network
Concerns about food safety in the Asia Pacific region have risen sharply, and spurred a high level, collective mandate from APEC Leaders to improve food safety standards and practices. In 2007, after the establishment of the APEC Food Safety Cooperation Forum (FSCF), APEC Leaders agreed on the need to develop a more robust approach to strengthening food safety standards and practices in the region, using scientific risk based approaches and without creating unnecessary impediments to trade. To this end, they called for increased capacity building to improve technical competence and understanding of food safety management among stakeholders in the supply chain, which include regulators, growers, packers, handlers, storage providers, processors, manufacturers, retailers and food service providers.
The Food Safety Cooperation Forum's Partnership Training Institute Network (FSCF PTIN) was created specifically to address the need to engage the food industry and academic food safety experts with the regulators, to strengthen capacity building in food safety.
Updates due to COVID19
For the 2021 APEC year, New Zealand, the 2021 APEC host, has announced a move to all virtual events for the year.
APEC FSCF PTIN Virtual Workshop on Pesticide MRL Harmonization and MRL Compliance
The United States will host a virtual workshop on Pesticide Maximum Residue Limits (MRLs) Harmonization: A Trade Facilitative Approach to MRL Compliance on December 16 and 17 starting at 6 pm Pacific Standard time (10 am Malaysian standard time +1 day). The objective of this virtual workshop is to harmonize MRL enforcement policies across APEC economies to improve food safety and facilitate trade. The project seeks to build the capacity of member economies to meet APEC’s goals of equitable and sustainable growth and improved social and economic well-being by helping economies take a consistent approach towards observance and enforcement of MRLs on specialty crops. Nominations (industry, economy, and academia welcome) are due by Tuesday, December 8, to Ms. Alana Baray (ABaray@nathaninc.com) and Mr. Marc Ciric (MCiric@nathaninc.com) of the US-SEGA team.
APEC FSCF PTIN Webinars to Introduce Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS) Multiyear Workstream
Earlier this year, the U.S. proposed via Concept Note a multi-year project, Whole Genome Sequencing: Laboratory Capacity Building of Environmental Testing for Foodborne Pathogens, to the APEC Food Safety Cooperation Forum (FSCF)’s Partnership Training Institute Network (PTIN). The effort was co-sponsored by Australia, Chile, Thailand, and the Philippines, and was fully endorsed by the FSCF in late June.
To kick off this effort, we are planning to hold a series of introductory webinars for the APEC community. We will hold three webinars, each targeted at a different sector (government, academia, and industry).
The Awareness Webinars will:
- Introduce WGS,
- Promote awareness of the APEC FSCF workstream objectives, and
- Provide sector-specific insights for policymakers, researchers, instructors, and laboratory managers.
- Webinar—Government: Monday 14 December @ 21:00 (Washington, D.C.) / Tuesday 15 December @ 10:00 (Beijing)
- Webinar—Academia: Tuesday 15 December @ 21:00 (Washington, D.C.) / Wednesday 16 December @10:00 (Beijing)
- Webinar—Industry: Wednesday 16 December @ 21:00 (Washington, D.C.) / Thursday 17 December @ 10:00 (Beijing)
APEC Leader Statement November 2020
APEC Economic Leaders met on November 20, 2020 and agreed to the concluding APEC 2020 Leader’s Statement for the Malaysia year. APEC Leaders committed to protecting people’s lives and safeguarding their health and resolved to further navigate the region towards recovery along the path of strong, balanced, inclusive, sustainable, innovative and secure economic growth.
Development Continues on APEC Risk Communication Framework
Australia continues a series of three workshops and electronic working groups to develop an APEC Risk Communication Framework. The first workshop met virtually July 24, 2020, after being postponed due to the pandemic. One hundred representatives from food safety regulatory agencies and food industry organizations of eighteen (18) APEC member economies, and FAO and WHO Western Pacific Regional Office attended. This workshop explored challenges faced by food safety regulatory agencies and the food industry in dealing with food safety risk communication and identified some of the causes to ineffective food safety risk communication. Participants discussed the purpose, scope, structure and principles to be included in the proposed APEC food safety risk communication framework.
Subsequently part A of the draft Food Safety Risk Communication Framework and an Industry Annex were circulated for comment by the electronic working group.
Workshop two will meet on December 3 and 4, 2020 to finalize part A of the Framework and to begin discussing development of Part B. A third workshop will be held in spring 2021 and the resulting final Framework will be presented at the Food Safety Cooperation Forum meeting in May 2021 for endorsement.