Sustained food safety action for improved
nutrition and health of Africans
Silvia Alonso, Delia Grace, Kristina Roesel, Namukolo Covic
and John McDermott
9th
annual Africa Day for Food and Nutrition Security
Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
4 December 2018

Presentation
 Why food safety in LMIC matters
 Food safety and nutrition
 What works on food safety
 Strategic direction for food safety in Africa

Background paper
3
Public 7 December 2018 at:
https://hdl.handle.net/10568/98385
http://a4nh.cgiar.org/
https://www.ilri.org/

Food Safety critical to ACHIEVING the SDGs
 Food safety is integral to:
 Food safety (practice) contributes to:
4
Food safety is integral to the SDGs
The lack of explicit attention to food safety in the SDGs stems from the low evidence base on the burden
of foodborne disease and the overall low awareness of development practitioners about the economic
significance of unsafe food.

Most foodborne disease caused by microbes
Havelaar et al. (2015)

India: 100 million cases per year
economic costs USD 12 to 55 billion
By 2030 – increasing from 1 in 12 to 1 in 9 people
illness/year (ILRI and WUR 2018)
Estimates of numbers of current
foodborne disease per year in India
It will get worse before it gets better
Hoffmann et al. (2018)

7

Domestic costs may be 20 times trade
costs
Cost estimates for 2016 (US$
billion)
Productivity loss 95
Illness treatment 15
Trade loss or cost 5 to 7
‘Productivity Loss’ =
Foodborne Disease DALYs x Per Capita GNI
Based on WHO/FERG & WDI Indicators Database
Illness treatment =
US$27 x # of Estimated foodborne illnesses
Trade loss or costs =
2% of developing country high value food exports

Where food safety and nutrition meet
Disease interferes with food intake and utilization
Some food safety hazards may decrease food nutrient content
(e.g. adulteration)
Some food safety hazards
associated with stunting via
various pathways (e.g. aflatoxins)
Some of the most nutritious
products are also the less safe
(animal-source foods)

World Health
Organization (2017)
Where food safety and nutrition meet
Foods implicated in foodborne
disease

Problem: fresh foods in wet markets
Painter et al. (2013); Sudershan et al. (2014); Mangan et al.
(2014); Tam et al. (2014); Sang et al. (2014); ILRI (2016)

What works on food safety?
12

We can’t regulate our way to food safety
Regulations are needed but not enough
 100% of milk in Assam doesn’t meet standards
 98% of beef in Ibadan, 52% pork in Ha Noi, unacceptable bacteria
counts
 92% of Addis milk and 46% of Nairobi milk had aflatoxins over EU
standards
 36% of farmed fish from Kafr el Sheikh exceed one or more MPL
 30% of chicken from commercial broilers in Pretoria
unacceptable for S. aureus
 24% of boiled milk in Abidjan unacceptable for S. aureus

We can’t modernise our way to food safety
Modern retail growing, traditional persisting
 Supermarketization is slower than thought
 Formal sector food is not always safe
 Modern business models have often run into problems
– Co-ops, abattoirs, market upgrades

15
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
Poor total bacteria Unacceptable total
bacteria
Unacceptable
faecal bacteria
Unaccpetable
Staph
Unacceptable
listeria
Any unacceptable
Supermarket
Wet market
Village
Pork in Vietnam
ILRI, 2013

We can’t train our way to food safety
Capacity building useful if incentives in place
 Many actors are well intentioned but ill informed
 Small-scale pilots show short-term improvements
 Smallholders have been successfully integrated into export chains
 But domestic Good Agricultural Practice (GAP) has limited effect
– In 4 years, VietGAP reached 0.06%
– In Thailand, GAP farmers have no better
pesticide use than non-GAP farmers

Contains spoilers!
•Size of investment does not match food safety burden
•Most investments by few donors
Substantial focus on
•National control systems
•Exports and other formal markets
•Chemical hazards
Little focus on
•Market-based and demand-led approaches
•Informal sector where most foods are sold
•Biological hazards and risks to human
Forthcoming
December 2018

1. Health first: Better address the
health of domestic consumers
dependent on informal markets
2. Risk-based: Build capacity for well-
governed, evidence- and risk-based
food safety systems
3. Market-led: Harness marketplace
drivers of progress on food safety
Call to action!

Pull approach
(demand for safe food)
Push approach
(supply of safe food)
Consumers recognize
and demand safer
food
Value chain actors
respond to demand
and incentives
Inform, monitor and
legitimize value chain
actors
Build capacity and
motivation of
regulators
Consumer campaign
for empowered
consumers
The threefold path to safe food
Enabling environment

Take-home messages
 Huge (and understated) health burden of foodborne disease
 Huge (and understated) economic burden of foodborne
disease
 Foodborne disease and food safety affect nutrition through
multiple pathways
 Little attention to food safety in in-country markets
 Interventions successful in short term
 Long-term, wide-reaching impacts likely require:
o Training and technology
o Incentives

Background paper
21
Public 7 December 2018 at:
https://hdl.handle.net/10568/98385
http://a4nh.cgiar.org/
https://www.ilri.org/

This presentation is licensed for use under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence.
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