The Food Security and Quality Assurance Authority (FSQA) was recently involved in celebrations of the International Food Safety Day but the unanswered question has been: Was there much to be celebrated in The Gambia when it comes to food safety and quality?
It’s certainly an incontestable truth that international food safety day came at a time of mounting public suspicion around the ‘proliferation’ of sub-standard food products in our markets.
Indeed, The Gambia observed the day at a critical juncture when the health of foods, inundating the country’s food markets on a virtually daily basis, has become a talking point in the mainstream and social media channels.
The Gambia commemorated international food safety day at a moment when the country still struggled to test the quality of foods its population consumed.
At the time of writing this editorial, the country was still outsourcing expertise and facility to ascertain whether food sold to the population was wholesome. The absence of a scientific approach to the determination of the quality and safety of foods imported into the country has laid bare the lack of enthusiasm on the part of our food and political authorities to translate resolutions into solutions and commitments to actions.
The Gambia has been leaning on international benchmarking to determine the health of foods sold within its borders.
The FSQA has also been emasculated by the lack of adequate boots on the ground to enforce food safety regulations. Inadequate policing and the under-regulation of the food market constituted part of the problem for the breakdown in our food safety and quality architecture.
The state food authority meanwhile has a huge task in hand to adequately sensitize consumers about issues, revolving around food safety and quality. We strongly believe that the food unenlightened population can’t adopt sustainable food ways as well as make healthy food choices.
The FSQA consequently needs to rise to the occasion as the cost of unhealthy foods to our population and national budget was perceived in a lot of quarters as unacceptable.