Vietnam, Denmark share experience in food safety

HCM City (VNA) – Vietnam’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and Denmark’s Ministry of Environment and Food shared experience in food safety management for pork value chains at a workshop in Ho Chi Minh City on May 23.

The event aims to improve controls over food, veterinary medicine, chemicals and product origin tracing.

Deputy head of the National Agro-Forestry-Fisheries Quality Assurance Department Phung Huu Hao said Denmark has the best food safety controlling system in the world.

In 2013, the Vietnamese and Denmark ministries signed a protocol on cooperation in food safety and quality management.

Last year, the two sides secured a strategic collaboration project on food safety in pork value chains, which will be carried out between 2017 and 2018. Denmark provided more than 1 billion VND and shared experience from management agencies and experts.

The project aims to improve capacity of agencies in devising strategies to control food safety and build guidelines for livestock practice and tracing product origin.

Finn Clemmensen, senior counselor of the food and veterinary management department under Denmark’s Ministry of Environment and Food, said the country inspects various stages from breeding, feeding, slaughtering to transporting on common principles in food safety in line with regulations of other European countries. 

Through the fact-finding tour in Vietnam, Finn Clemmensen said Vietnam has many associations in cultivation and animal husbandry. However, the inspection of production and business activities is mainly conducted by State-run agencies.

Some pork slaughtering facilities don’t seriously obey regulations on food safety, he said, adding that it is necessary to raise breeders’ awareness of the importance of food safety in pork value chains.

Vietnam is home to nearly 4.5 million households raising pigs and about 29,000 small-scale slaughtering facilities.

Head of the Community Veterinary Division Huynh Thi Thanh Binh said relevant agencies will continue implementing programmes on annual inspection of food safety for products of animal origin, along with projects ensuring food safety in transporting and slaughtering of cattle and poultry in 2014-2020, and enhance international cooperation in the field