The National Bureau of Standards & partners are conducting a workshop to kick off a project that promotes the adoption of food safety & Codex standards.
The workshop that will take 4 days has been supported by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) South Sudan with the aim to achieve quality food production in South Sudan that will alleviate poverty and hunger.
The session looked at a range of solutions to strengthen national food control systems, including for the formal and informal sectors.
Governments need to foster multisectoral collaboration and joint efforts between human health, animal health, agriculture and other sectors to support policy measures and legal frameworks to strengthen national food control systems; Food businesses need to promote a food safety culture; Educational institutions need to support food safety education; Consumers need to be informed and practice safe food handling at home.
Speaking during the opening of the Workshop on Tuesday in Juba the Director General of Administration and Finance of South Sudan Bureau of Standards Majak Deng said the most important of the workshop is to talk about national food safety and how to achieve it.
“ we want to work together on how to achieve food safety and codex , this need collective responsibility to achieve, We need to share the information together as institutions”
He called for cooperation among the institutions concern and share the information as a way forward to benefit as a country on food safety and codex.
“We have to put our hands together and see how to put south Sudan in a different area, we need to take this of food safety as our main concern. Food safety is concern of everybody, codex committee can provide us with all the information and if implemented we will achieve more in our nation”
Mr Lawrence Chenge from Tanzania Bureau of standard and consultant on the workshop said that the main objective of the workshop is to train South Sudan mainly on food safety and learn from Tanzania, and at the same time Tanzania will learn from south Sudan.
“I am sure that if South Sudan can learn from other countries in EAC they will do wonders, they have done a lot, they will be getting more knowledge on food safety and food safety is about public health and trade, most of activities are related to food safety and trade”.
Hannington P. K Sebaduka FAO Team leader-Market and trade said that they are supporting Codex and food safety in South Sudan as way forward to alleviate poverty and hunger,
“we need to have quality and healthy food and that is why we are supporting this workshop as FAO south Sudan, we cannot achieve food security which is our main objective as FAO, without supporting production of quality food”
He said that achieving food security in South Sudan for alleviating poverty and hunger cannot be achieve if the food which is circulating in south Sudan is not safe and healthy and the best way to do that is equip the national institutions like national bureau of standards.
He said that they want to trade in this country and without standard food, it’s going to be a loss for them.
“Without quality standard we will not achieve food security in south Sudan, we are committed to support codex such that there is food security in south Sudan”
