08 Jun 2023

The Minister of Health says Batswana need to maintain high standards of food safety and to demand safer and quality food for their health.

Speaking at the fifth World Food Safety Day commemoration in Gaborone recently, Dr Edwin Dikoloti said the commemoration held under the theme, “Food Standards Save Lives”, aimed not only to raise awareness on the importance of prevention, detection and management of risks through food safety practices, promoting debate, solutions and ways to improve human health, trade, agriculture, and sustainable development, but also seought to influence consumer food choices.

Dr Dikoloti said events of the last few weeks, concerning the use of effluent water on leafy vegetables, and the sale of unlabelled food products, had underpinned the importance of ensuring compliance to rules and regulations by all players in the food chain, for safer foods in daily lives.

“Food safety is fundamental to human health,” he said. “Every human being has the right to nutritious and safe food. The fragility of life requires that we all recognise the importance of producing and keeping our food safe,” he said.

In accordance with the one-health approach, safe food began with better agricultural production, following good agricultural practices.

“It depicts the indelible connection between the health of the people and that of plants, animals and the environment, which in turn improves the nutritional status of the population,” he said. He spoke of the need to follow food standards judiciously. He said his ministry remained resolute that the population’s health and longevity depends on the safety and quality of the food they ate.

In alignment with the reset agenda on value chain addition, the ministry was re-orienting activities on the national food safety system, in collaboration with food business operators and other stakeholders to improve the sustainable production and consumption of safe food.

That, he said, would go a long way in helping to improve health outcomes in Botswana.

“We cannot over-emphasise the importance of food safety and food hygiene in ensuring that the production and handling of food is safe for consumption,” he said.

He said such could be realised through partnering with the food industry in the area of standards adoption and certification of food systems.

Dr Dikoloti celebrated the ministry’s collaboration and partnership with sister ministries of Agriculture, Local Government and Rural Development, saying food and health were intertwined.

He also applauded Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and World Health Organisation (WHO) on the 60th anniversary of the Codex Alimentarius Commission since inception for the establishment of food standards for defining the path to safe food for everyone everywhere.

Again, he hailed the public for playing an important role in alerting government when they noticed malpractices at different levels of the food chain, citing the recent video on use of effluent water which made rounds on social media, which he said depicted that indeed food safety was everyone’s business and there was need to work together to safeguard the health of people. ends