admin Annually, June 7th is observed as the World Food Safety Day. This is an international event directed towards spreading awareness about foodborne ailments, their prevention, management techniques; and ensuring food security, wellbeing, and sustainable development.
Historical Trajectory of the Day
Introduced in 2018 by the United Nations General Assembly, World Food Safety Day is aimed at alleviation and eventually eradication of food-borne diseases across the world. It is a joint collaborative effort between WHO and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations along with other member states, and organizations to eliminate potential health hazards caused by food-borne diseases, on a global scale.
Theme for World Food Safety Day 2021
This year the chosen theme is ‘Safe Food Today for a Healthy Tomorrow’, to encourage the consumption of the right kind of food that would benefit both human beings and our environment. The aim is to raise awareness about responsible agricultural practices that not only ensure an end to starvation, but are equally environmentally conscious and safe. Reducing carbon emissions from cultivation is a top priority for the UN.
Need of the Hour
There has never been a more dire need to ensure health care than now, given the Covid-19 crisis. It has become all the more imperative to strengthen immunity, eliminate spread of foodborne ailments, inculcate healthy, hygienic practices in agricultural domains, market and everywhere that involves food dealings. The endeavor of World Food Safety has always been to mitigate the risks of diseases through food, worldwide. Food safety is a public agenda of World Food Safety which targets to: provide ways to ensure food safety, demonstrate prevention of ailments through food; provide collaborative approaches to enhanced food safety across all sectors; develop and sponsor programs to better manage and contain the diseases which are infectious; and prevent deaths.
There are 200 different kinds of foodborne diseases (caused from harmful chemicals, bacteria, viruses, parasites) that have been identified. Statistical data shows that around 600 million people fall prey to such types of foodborne diseases, every year; and among which children (below 5 years) and poverty-stricken sections are more prone to illnesses due to unhygienic food consumption. Food safety entails a holistic approach towards securing food, right from the stage of harvesting, processing, storing, and distributing to consuming.
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