GOVERNMENT is soon to consolidate all its food safety programmes now under the ministries of health, agriculture and industry, commerce and technology.

This, the administration expects, should lead to a centralised and efficient food safety agency that meets the needs of food producers, distributors and service providers in the hotel industry, including food establishments and consumers.

The National Agricultural Health and Food Safety Co-ordinating Committee, established in December last year, has already completed a four-year work plan that outlines the activities necessary for the creation of a centralised food safety agency.

Peter Knight, chairman, said the committee would determine the objectives, roles and responsibilities of the various food safety agencies and develop mechanisms for rationalisation, co-ordination and collaboration. This is in addition to regularly reviewing the effectiveness of the food safety system.

The committee is also reviewing the findings of research conducted on the role and responsibilities of the several food safety authorities in Jamaica.

“This will eliminate the problem of overlapping of duties by the agencies responsible for food safety,” Knight told staff of the Jamaica Information Service this week. He added that the overlap contributed to “cross-funding” by international agencies for similar activities and projects.

In addition, a single food safety entity would also obliterate the problem of “turfing”, where food safety agencies impinge on each other’s jurisdiction, resulting in much confusion, he said.

Knight noted, however, that these problems were not unique to Jamaica as they were “quite common in countries all over the world”. The problem countries faced, he said, was to get food regulatory bodies to work together to achieve the goal of food safety for the population.