Quarantine and Food Safety
For several years, FFTC has been trying to help Asian farmers cope with free trade in agricultural products under WTO. In 2000, as part of these efforts, FFTC held an international seminar on quarantine and food safety.
Increasingly too, quarantine regulations are following international rather than national standards. Asian farmers need to know about these if they are producing for export.
Maximum Residue Levels (MRLS)
The maximum residue level is a basic concept in food safety, and in international regulations. It means the maximum permitted level of various kinds of chemical residues, especially pesticides, herbicides and fungicides. The concept of the MRL is applied to both human food and animal feed. All countries have their own MRLs. Nowadays there is an international set of standards as well. This is known as the Codex Alimentarius, or Codex for short. The Codex MRL levels were discussed at the FFTC seminar. It was pointed out that the international MRLs are based mainly on Western body size and patterns of food intake.
Westerners tend to be larger than Asians, and have a different diet. One recommendation from the seminar was that a Subcommittee of Codex should be established. This would help ensure that MRLs of chemicals as a percentage of total food intake reflect Asian food consumption patterns, as well as Western ones. For example, Asians have a higher average vegetable consumption than Westerners. An MRL for a vegetable which is safe for Western people might be too low for Asian people who eat a lot of that vegetable.
International Regulations
The safety of exported agricultural produce is a major issue in international trade. Most countries demand that the level of pesticides in imported food does not exceed their own national MRL. At first sight, this seems reasonable. However, it gives many problems to Asian countries, especially tropical ones.
Pressure from pests is much higher in a tropical country than in a temperate one, where the cold season breaks the buildup of pest populations. This means that countries with a tropical climate tend to use higher levels of pesticides. Temperate countries can impose lower pesticide residue levels than is feasible for crops grown in the tropics. The effect may be to exclude Asian exports such as tropical fruit from these temperate countries.
A related problem is the registration of pesticides. Some countries, including the United States, have a policy of zero tolerance for residues of pesticides which have not been registered for domestic use. In some cases, this banning may reflect a legitimate health concern.
In other cases, the pesticide is not registered simply because the country does not need it. The country may not have the relevant pest, or it may not grow the relevant crop. Exporting countries facing such bans might find that they exclude their cheapest and most effective pesticides.
Regional Cooperation
Clearly, countries in the region would benefit greatly from increased regional cooperation. Under WTO, national MRLs and lists of permitted pesticides are being replaced by international ones. Asian countries need a strong and united presence at international forums when these issues are discussed.
This will put them in a strong position to make sure that international standards take regional needs into account. Otherwise, international regulations may tend to favor wealthy Western exporting countries. There should also be close cooperation between exporting and importing countries in the resolution of economic issues, including the banning of pesticides.
FMD - the Special Quarantine Problems
Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) is one of the most serious threats to the region's livestock industry. An FMD outbreak always means a major loss for livestock producers and the national economy. Stopping the outbreak involves killing all animals which are infected or may be infected, and burning their carcasses. This may involve hundreds of thousands of animals. Usually the government will declare quarantine zones, and restrict animal movement until the outbreak is over. Even if livestock producers are lucky and escape the disease, they are likely to suffer heavy losses. Because of the ban on livestock movement, they cannot take their livestock to market.
An outbreak of FMD also means a ban on all exports of livestock and livestock products - a ban which may last for years. All Asian and Pacific countries import livestock only from countries free of FMD, as certified by the international office of animal epidemics, OIE (Office International des Epizootics), based in France. All countries also carry out an inspection of imported livestock and animal products, to make sure that they are not carrying FMD and other diseases. This includes laboratory tests of a random sample of imported products. Imported live animals are usually placed in a 30-day quarantine, and given blood tests, to check that they are free of FMD and other diseases.
Outbreaks of foot-and mouth disease cause such huge economic losses that quarantine restrictions for FMD are more stringent than for any other livestock disease. However, FMD is not a very serious livestock disease in itself. Most animals suffer nothing worse than temporary lameness and a poor appetite for a few weeks. An FMD outbreak will kill thousands of livestock, but they will not die from the disease. Their deaths will be from slaughter programs to end the outbreak quickly, in order to protect the country's future livestock exports.
Foot-and-Mouth Disease
Foot-and-Mouth disease (FMD) is a viral infection of animals with cloven hooves, such as cattle, pigs and goats. Animals usually become infected by inhaling the virus, or by eating it in food. Cattle are very sensitive to infection by inhalation, while pigs are more vulnerable to virus in food. The main symptom is blisters on the feet and mouth. The length of the incubation period varies, according to the path of infection and how much virus the animal is exposed to. When livestock are exposed to a lot of virus, the incubation period may be only 2-3 days, but with low doses it may be 10-14 days. When a herd is first exposed, the exposure dose is generally low and the incubation period is likely to be a long one. As more animals become infected, the amount of virus is amplified, and infection spreads rapidly.
The virus is highly infectious, being easily transmitted by live animals, in meat, and in non-pasteurized dairy products. The virus can also spread when no livestock or livestock products are present. In fact, it can be spread " by anything which moves" - on car tires, on the clothing and shoes of human beings, and even on the wind. Wind-borne spread of FMD over land of 60 kilometers has been reported, and 200 km over open sea. Virus particles can also remain dormant in the soil for years.
Index of Images
Figure 1 Young Pig with Foot and Mouth Disease
