MEMORANDUM 33
Submitted by Hugh Oliver-Bellasis
I have been asked by Dr North to send you the
view of an individual about the proposed FSA. Please accept that
this is my private view as a farmer/butcher and not the view of
anyone else.
It is difficult to say precisely the impact
of the proposed FSA, but I will highlight some areas of concern.
The efficacy of the new Agency will hang on the quality of the
Chairman, Chief Executive and the Commissioners. If they do not
establish their credibility early, then, their impact in a food
scare will not make a significant difference to current handling.
We all have a part in that to make sure that we support them in
their task.
Thus it is important at this formative stage
that no one party feels aggrieved at the strictures being put
in place—no mean task! For example the levy—the current
proposals are not logical. My small butchers shop to pay the same
as a supermarket?
However, the issue is one of public safety and
thus an exchequer expense? The enforcement of the regulations
will be done largely at local level; there is currently a wide
variation in standards between different EHO's—the ability
to ensure common standards is vital. A difficult area is the handling
of uncorroborated media reports of a food safety issue. It is
important for the Agency to act decisively and on its own to maintain
consumer confidence but balancing risk and cost whilst using best
available science.
Thus the Agency's main source of information
must come from the advisory committees. Probably one of the most
important areas of early work must be the establishment of better
research and surveillance mechanisms that really do do the required
job. Are current inspection criteria appropriate and capable of
delivering the safety required? I suggest not. Some resources
must be applied for example to finding different methods of identifying
microbiological contamination of food at any stage in the food
chain.
These issues are the responsibility of the whole
food chain, not any one sector. We must work in concert, something
that has not always been achieved. There is some concern from
farmers at the suggestion as yet not clear as to the influence
of the Agency at the farm level.
The farmer already feels highly regulated and
in more difficult circumstances that other part of the food chain
because of exposure to the elements, e.g., campylobacte carried
by birds. There must be recognition at all stages that there is
a limit to the sanitisation on farm.
March 1999
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