BAHA upgrades local meat standards
While politicians, economists, and ordinary citizens may debate the merits of globalisation, one clear downside is that when the food supply goes bad in one part of the world, the trouble can spread as fast as a 747. For national health authorities that means playing offence and defence at the same time. Patrick Jones reports.
Patrick Jones, Reporting
Production figures supplied by the Ministry of Agriculture show that in 2002, the last year for which full figures are available, Belize produced thirty point eight million pounds of poultry and four point one million pounds of beef. That’s a lot of meat, and the agency charged with ensuring that it’s all safe for the dinner table, BAHA, has brought producers together to talk about improving standards. Director of Food Safety, Dr. Michael DeShield, says he recently visited all the major slaughter facilities in the country.
Dr. Michael DeShield Director of Food Safety
“And we did an assessment of the meat inspection system that we’ve put in place with our food safety inspectors and look at the facility to give an assessment of it to see where they are as far as hygiene and all of that is concerned.”
The findings of the visit are being discussed at the two-day workshop being attended by over twenty large and small producers, mainly from the Cayo and Orange Walk districts, the two main beef and poultry producing areas. DeShield says the facilities vary in quality.
Dr. Michael DeShield
“From very poor sanitation to very almost top of the line with some of the controls they have in place. So it’s a wide range and what we are trying to do is to bring people up to a specific food safety standard that the Belizean public can be assured that we have a good system.”
The workshop is being facilitated by Gary Thiessen of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. Thiessen says with the inspection work already being done by BAHA, Belizean producers are well on the way to meeting world standards.
Dr. Gary Thiessen, Workshop Facilitator
“The goal is to try to help Belize meet the international standard so that it will improve the safety of the meat products for the consumers and also help the livestock industry, the agriculture sector being able to export meat products.”
Belize does not currently export any processed beef or poultry, but DeShield says with bird flu and mad cow diseases affecting major markets abroad, producers need to be vigilant, both in terms of keeping infection outside our borders and at the same time being ready to meet export demand if the need arises.
Dr. Michael DeShield
“We don’t have them here, none of those are here and we have some controls in place. And we did presentation on that this morning. We talked about the B.S.E. situation, we have the consultant here who have lived this in Canada because of the B.S.E. there and his experience and what that does to the industry. We have very good controls here as far as surveillance that we are doing, and we are trying to maintain that surveillance. It costs a lot of money, but we have to do the surveillance that’s necessary for avian influenza.”
To help defray the cost of that surveillance, BAHA will discontinue subsidising the import permit process. Importers were told at a meeting on Tuesday that they will now have to bear the full cost of getting their goods safely into the country.
Dr. Michael DeShield
“That’s another part of it. Yeah, the whole thing was basically to introduce the fee because the time we take and all the stuff that we’re doing, we don’t have enough finance to help keep funding that. It’s subsidized heavily and we can no longer afford that. So to have the controls in place require an input of funds and so we had to raise the fee to twenty-five dollars.”
Thiessen says it will take more than cash for Belize to improve the standards for meat products
Gary Thiessen
“It takes both knowledge and money. The industry will have to upgrade their plants to international standard to achieve this goal. And also, they will have to learn how to increase the level of meat hygiene or sanitation in the plants. On the government side they will have to learn some new inspection procedures.”
Thiessen says that with the inspection methods already employed by BAHA, and the willingness of producers to improve their operations, Belize should attain the much sought after international recognition for its poultry and meat handling protocols sooner, rather than later. Patrick Jones, for News 5.
The workshop ends on Thursday.
