 Okay, excellencies, distinguished delegates and participants, dear colleagues, very good morning, afternoon, or even evening for quite a number of you, of course, depending on your time zone. And welcome to the fourth issue of the FAO Geneva Nutrition Dialogue Series, jointly organized with the Food and Nutrition Division in FAO headquarters and in collaboration with the Brussels liaison office and with a significant technical contribution from the FAO's food system and food safety division. My name is Dominique Bourgen and I am the director of the FAO liaison office in Geneva, and I will be moderating today's session. Before starting, allow me to share the usual details regarding the logistics and housekeeping for this virtual session. This webinar will be in English with no interpretation. It will be recorded and will be later available on our website, along with the various related resources relevant to this session. It is scheduled to last for about one hour and 30 minutes. We have reserved sometimes toward the end of the webinar for Q&A sessions, so please submit your question using the Q&A module, not the regular chat box, and we'll try our best to accommodate as many requests as possible. Please note that a few key terms and their definition will be shared in the chat for your ease of reference. If you have any problem or technical issue, please send a message in the chat box to ask for support. So that's all for our skipping, and I would love to take a few moments to briefly introduce our speakers today. We are actually honored and pleased to have with us a number of distinguished speakers who will intervene on the topics of bringing food safety and nutrition together through an agri-food system approach. We'll hear from Dr. Eleonora Dupuy, Food Safety Officer at FAO, Dr. Stella North-Eggen, Senior Technical Specialist with the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition, Gein, from Dr. Mongeau Morchette-Arment, a member of the Bangladesh Food Safety Network, Dr. Augustine Okurawa, Head of the Eat Safe Country Program at Gein, Nigeria. We'll have also with us Professor William Chen, the Director of the Food Science and Technology Program of Singapore Nanyang Technological University. We'll then have Mr. Dirk Schultz, the Food Safety Officer from FAO, will be facilitating a panel reflecting on the case studies presented and actions to bring food safety and nutrition together through a agri-food system approach. With Dr. Stella North-Eggen, Mr. José Valz-Budo, the Policy Officer at the FAO Food Systems and Food Safety Division, and Dr. Luz Maria de Reguil, Head of the Multisectoral Action in Food Systems Unit at WHO. Thank you all, of course, for agreeing to be with us today in what promises to be a very rich conversation. Dear participants, the purpose of these webinars is to enable us to collectively learn from the process of taking action in the field about how to leverage the power of agri-food systems to improve nutrition while also achieving other development goals. So before we start, we would like to share with you the lessons we learned from our webinar last month, which brought a wide range of speakers together to discuss urban food systems for better diets. To do so, I will give the floor to Professor Corina Oaks, who is a senior consultant in the FAO Liaison Office in Geneva, and who is also the director of the Center for Food Policy at City University of London, who will brief us on the lessons from our last day. So Corina, the floor is yours. Thank you, Dominique. Can I just check? You can hear me OK. Yes, very well. Thank you. Thank you, Excellencies and colleagues. It's a pleasure to be here today. And as Dominique said, the last webinar was around urban food systems. And we learned a lot of interesting lessons from the discussants and the panelists at that session. And there is so much activity going on around the world to improve urban food systems. We heard from three specific examples. Pember in Mozambique, Pune in India, and Nairobi in Kenya. And what emerged very clearly from all three examples was just how important formative research and assessment process had been in identifying where action was most needed in those cities and could be most effective. In short, knowing their food system in these cities was the starting point for systems change, enabling them to focus on solutions such as improving market infrastructure, reducing food waste, and designing more effective dietary interventions that were really going to be effective in their contexts. A second lesson concerned multi-stakeholder platforms, which proved key to successful working in those cities. Primary and secondary cities have proven an ideal level to establish these multi-stakeholder platforms, bringing together actors from across food systems to coordinate and make decisions and building trust and creating a shared agenda across the food system proved crucial to the success of these platforms. So first, it was about knowing their own food systems. Secondly, it was about bringing together multi-stakeholder platforms with actors across food systems. And another driver of success was participating in external networks, global, regional, and national, and city-to-city to enable cities to learn from each other, to exchange ideas and cooperating with these networks really was shown to have a tangible impact on the ability to have effect change across food systems. Finally though, it was a real challenge that emerged from these cities, from a nutrition perspective, that if they are going to really effectively improve nutrition, there is a need to connect agendas across different systems more effectively, such as ensuring food waste reduction also works to enhance access to nutritious foods. And the solution to that was seen as identifying co-benefits between different agendas and intentionally focusing and leveraging these co-benefits. So there were the main lessons that we learned. They're very uncommon with the lessons that we learned from the previous webinar. So already from these dialogues, some common lessons are beginning to emerge. And with that, I'll pass back to Dominique. Thank you. Thank you very much Corina, indeed. We see indeed the common lessons that start to emerge. And this is why we have a commitment to start each of these dialogue with a sort of lessons learning from the previous one. And we are currently discussing how to help towards the end of the year, perhaps early next year, a broader stop taking exercise to indeed jointly identify all these common aspects and lessons learned to share with you and therefore contribute to the broader discussion collectively, of course. But again, thank you Corina. And Excellencies Distinguished Delegates and Participants, before moving on to our distinguished speakers, I would like to briefly introduce today's topic of the dialogue on, of course. And what I should say is that is what established that food safety and nutrition are linked. Unfortunately, though it is also evident that there is insufficient recognition of this in the management of both food safety and nutrition, leading to therefore missed opportunities for, for synergy. An agri-food system approach presents the opportunity for that synergy since changes can be made in agri-food systems to support both food safety and nutrition. This dialogue aims to spark ideas on how to do that, drawing lessons from diverse examples from three countries working to advance food safety. And the examples that we are going to listen to today are from Bangladesh, Nigeria, and Singapore. Before hearing from representatives from these three countries, we'll now start with some experts to provide some background and context. And we'll first hear from Dr. Eleanor Dupui, Food Safety Officer at FAO, who will highlight food systems thinking on food safety and nutrition and FAO's approach to food safety. Then we'll have Dr. Stella Noregan, Senior Technical Specialist with Gain, who will present on the link between links between currently siloed communities of practice of food safety and nutrition. So Eleanor, the floor is yours to start with. Thank you very much Dominique for the floor and for the introduction for this dialogue. And I will start now sharing my screen. Please let me know if you see the presentation. Yes, perfect. Okay, thank you very much. So Excellencies Distinguished Participants, dear colleagues, it's an honor and a pleasure to be with you today and contribute from food safety perspective to setting the scene for the discussion on how to bring food safety and nutrition together through an agri-food system approach. Food safety and nutrition quality are essential elements and integral part of food security concept. Food security and food safety are interlinked fundamentals for healthy diets and improved nutrition. There is no food security without food safety. What is not safe is not food. And without food safety, there are no healthy diets. Foodborne diseases exacerbate nutrient deficiencies and contribute to malnutrition, morbidity and mortality. The essential interdependencies between food security, food safety and healthy diets need to be recognized and considered in policy-making, programming, investments and action. So how to achieve food safety? Food safety is assurance that food will not cause adverse health effects to the consumer when it is prepared and or eaten according to its intended use. Food safety refer to compliance with standards and application of good practices in agri-food systems aiming to avoid, minimize or reduce food safety risks at still acceptable levels. Food safety is vulnerable. It requires continuous surveillance. Changes in the environment, in climate, changes in global drivers and agri-food systems may have potential to disrupt and potential to strengthen food safety. Ensuring food safety need to be considered at all stages of food supply chain from farm to table and across all agri-food systems. Food safety is important for all three dimensions of sustainability. This slide brings some statistics in this regard. For people, food safety is vital for life and health. It has a role as well for leveling inequalities. Food safety is important for economies. Being essential for trade, market access is an enabler for income, livelihoods, economic growth and development. Food safety is a well contributor to climate change mitigation. Produced food and agri-food practices are entry points to reduce the environmental footprint. Food safety is key to building greater efficiency, inclusiveness, sustainability and resilience into agri-food systems. Yet, food safety is often overseen or given little attention in food security and nutrition policies. At the request of the FAO committee on agriculture, the FAO strategic priorities for food safety for 2022, 2031, with a vision to provide safe food for all people at all times have been developed to contribute to the 20th safety agenda. These priorities have been endorsed last week by the FAO committee on agriculture at its 28th session. The FAO strategic priorities for food safety focus on four major strategic areas, including food safety governance, sound scientific advice and evidence, strengthening national food control system and promoting public-private collaboration to ensure food safety risk management and controls throughout agri-food systems. There is no hierarchy or ranking among these priorities. All are essential and interdependent. The endorsed FAO strategic priorities for food safety will support the implementation of the FAO strategic framework 2022, 2031, directly contributing to the SDG1 zero poverty, SDG2 zero hunger, SDG3 good health and well-being and supporting a number of other SDGs like number six, eight, 10, 12, 13 and 17. The priorities provide strong synergies and are instrumental for many FAO priority program areas, including healthy diets for all. They will support repositioning food safety within agri-food system transformation as an opportunity to increase awareness of food safety role and benefits to increase political commitment, prioritization, investments, mainstreaming and consistent integration into agri-food systems. Food safety is multi-sectoral and everyone's business. It can be achieved only through intersectoral policy alignment among agriculture, health, environment, trade, education, social protection, finance, connecting agenda across systems toward a common goal, through cooperation, coordination, data sharing, capacity development, concerted and impactful action. Identifying co-benefits and leveraging synergies are key for success. Strengthening food safety, reducing food losses by unsafe criteria, promoting the production of foods that are both nutritious and safe, that make up accessible and affordable healthy diets, a part of solution to improve food security and nutrition worldwide. I would like to thank all for their attention and wish you all insightful deliberation within this event. And now I will give the floor back to Dominique. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much indeed, Eleonora, for such a clear presentation on the interconnection between food safety, food security and healthy diets, but also how to achieve food safety and the importance of food safety in the three dimensions of sustainability and then coming to the FAO roles in support of that. So that's very clear. Thank you. And now let's move to indeed Dr. Naghegen on the links between these communities. So Stella, the floor is yours. Great. Thanks very much, Dominique. And thanks everybody for joining us today, whether you're joining from here in Geneva or from further afield. So I think I'm still waiting for my slides to come up, but I'll begin talking in the interim and hope they'll come up soon. But I imagine that some people attending may have been a little surprised to see a session on food safety appearing in the lineup of this nutrition dialogue series. And indeed the two topics of nutrition and food safety are often treated separately with different sets of research, interventions, experts, policies, and technical bodies. But as Eleonora pointed out, both are essential aspects of food security. And there are three reasons I see why action to improve nutrition will be more efficient and effective if it also considers food safety. Next slide, please. The first is that nutrition and food safety have large and closely overlapping burdens. Malnutrition in one of its forms affects over one third of the global population and there are about 600 million cases of foodborne disease annually. Both of these come with large economic costs from 110 billion, as Eleonora cited, up to three trillion US dollars per year. And for both, the burden falls heaviest on low and middle income countries and within those countries on vulnerable groups like young children, lower income people, and those who don't have good access to water sanitation and other types of infrastructure. In addition, the greatest known food safety risks are associated with some of the most nutrient dense foods. So things like animal source foods like dairy, fish, and meat, as well as fresh vegetables and fruits. So addressing these two large causes of ill health involves engaging with similar populations as well as with similar foods. Next slide. Second, food safety and nutrition are closely and bi-directionally interlinked. Foodborne disease influences malnutrition and malnutrition influences foodborne disease. And these linkages can be grouped into four areas, health and physiology, consumer behavior, supply chains and markets, and policy and regulations. The linkages are perhaps the clearest when it comes to health and physiology, as foodborne disease can cause reduced nutrient intake and absorption, which can increase the risk of malnutrition. And at the same time, those people who are already malnourished are more susceptible to disease, including foodborne disease. But there are also linkages when it comes to the behavior of consumers and of market actors. For example, concern over food being unsafe can lead to food vendors choosing not to sell certain foods. For example, avoiding those that they see as having a large level of risk, like perhaps dairy products, and instead to sell other foods, which can impact food availability in the market and therefore have an impact on people's choices and their diets. It can also lead to consumers changing their dietary choices directly, which can impact their nutrition. For example, research in low and middle income countries has shown that some consumers choose to eat highly processed packaged foods because they perceive them as being safer because they're processed in an industrial manner and they're packaged in a way that seems to protect the food in the market. But these highly processed foods can have a negative impact on their nutrition. Finally, there are also some linkages related to policies and regulations. For example, the creation of right fit food safety standards that make it feasible for producers and vendors to comply can encourage the production and sale of highly nutritious foods. Whereas having very strict standards that are seen as infeasible can act as a disincentive to supply the same types of foods. So food safety and nutrition are closely interlinked and intervening to affect one can also affect the other. Next slide. So that brings me to the third reason why nutrition actions need to consider food safety. And this is that in some cases more efficient and effective programs and policies could be achieved by tackling the two jointly by taking a food systems perspective such as was described in Eleanor's remarks and I hope we'll be clear in the examples that we'll hear about later in this dialogue. Next slide. Indeed, the links between food safety and nutrition they're already recognized in some important international documents such as shown in the quotes here and really enshrined within that definition of food security. But as Dominique mentioned at the beginning these linkages are often not actually embodied in practice. For example, many of the major frameworks out there for nutrition and for food systems which are used to guide programming policies and monitoring and evaluation don't mention food safety or they mentioned food safety and passing but without actually integrating it in any detail into the recommendations they make or the implications that they draw. Similarly, many different food safety frameworks and policies don't mention nutrition. And in practice we see that these two issues of food safety and nutrition are rarely addressed in a comprehensive manner through integrated policies and programs. However, more integrated approaches represent untapped potential for improving nutrition and health. And I look forward to hearing more about approaches like that in today's dialogue. Thanks very much. Thank you. Thank you very much, Dr. North Hagen to indeed illustrate the link between food safety and nutrition as the issue and therefore the importance for these communities to closely interact with each other. Of course, I like that intervening on one aspect can impact the other one and therefore why it is so important that food safety be considered in the context of our nutrition effort and therefore in the context of this nutrition theory. So thank you again to both you and Eleonora and we're now here from Dr. Munzo Morshet Ahmed who is a member of the Bangladesh Food Safety Network. We share with us the experience of transforming in Bangladesh through a food system approach. Dr. Munzo, very happy to see you and the floor is yours. Thank you Dominic. I hope you'll hear me. Yes, very, very well. Please go ahead. Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for having me and greetings from Bangladesh Food Safety Authority. Good evening from Bangladesh. Let me a few seconds, I can share my slides. So I think you'll see my slides. Yes, perfect, perfect. Thank you, just I will give my stories of food safety in Bangladesh, you know, the strategies and interventions and governance issues. So first of all, Bangladesh Food Safety Authority, it is a new organization in Bangladesh. The overall Food Safety Act has promulgated in 2013. You know, before that, there is an ordinance, beautiful ordinance in 1959. The days back, old ordinance and Bangladesh Food Safety was based on that ordinance. But due to modern concepts and requirements, the government has enacted Food Safety Act 2013. And under this act, Bangladesh Food Safety Authority is established in 2015. So that is only a four, only a six years old organizations. But this organization is very powerful in terms of mandates and some other aspects. I'll give you the stories. So what is observing here today? The Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has enacted this Food Safety Act 2013 and Food Safety Authority has established, but the most important aspect is by establishing these authorities, I believe the transformation of science-based food safety in Bangladesh has started with this authority. So the organization is dealing the overarching organization for having the overall coordination of food safety among the other organizations responsible for different kind of activities of food safety. So this is one kind of big achievement in Bangladesh, I would say. So in Bangladesh constitutional constitution, it is mentioned in Article 15 and 18 that the every people or every citizen has right to have safe and nutritious food. This is written in our constitution. And all of you know that if food is not safe, that is not food actually. So for having that right, food safety is considered as a prerequisite to achieve overall food security in Bangladesh. And already the top priority of the present government, actually this government has a party election agenda to ensure safe food for all people. And the country is looking for the great achievements of NCCC by 2030 by ensuring the safe food after placing it in the top of the agenda. Also we have in Bangladesh the eight five year plan and in the eight five year plan, food safety and nutritious food. This is all our top priority in the agenda of the eight five year plan. And also we have a vision 2041 where we can see that all people of Bangladesh are having access for nutrition and safe food. So this is a big achievement. So if you consider the food system priority pathway in Bangladesh, so I would say that there are some big pillars for having the food system. First of all, we have a vision that we should have a zero hunger for all our people. And for having the zero hunger, you should be able to access safe and sustainable food system. If the sustainable food system is not in place, zero hunger is not possible. And we also want to reduce the malnutrition in our country. So malnutrition reduction is one of the important aspect as well as the food system in Bangladesh. Resilient food system is also important. You know, the climate change, the vulnerability, all the resilient, all the natural calamities that is very prone in Bangladesh. We have a sudden flood, flash floods, some other natural calamities, but we need a resilient food system for having the safe and accessible food for all people. And Bangladesh is based on agriculture livelihoods. So it is also very important for our food system as well. Safe and nutrition food. I also mentioned that safe and nutrition food is the pillar of food system. Also, we focus on food loss and waste because in Bangladesh, if you consider the food security that you would say that around 18 to 20% of produced food are actually, you know, post-harvest loss. So this very big amount of post-harvest loss and waste is a very important concern for resilient and sustainable food safety, sorry, resilient food system in Bangladesh. So this is one of the important issue we have to consider it. And lastly, the One Health approach, you know, is another concept that Bangladesh is currently pursuing. If we see that the strategies for food and nutrition security, there are actually, you know, we have a food policy monitoring unit. This food policy monitoring unit under the Ministry of Food is dealing basically the food policies and the food related other issues. This food policy monitoring committee, there is a top committee that is responsible for strategic orientation of that related issues. And we have national committees. That national committee has overall guidance and the leisure activities and food policy working group is actually coordinates the technical teams. Those are actually working in the field and responsible for monitoring. So overall the strategies for food and nutrition security is observing in this way. So, you know that food safety, what is started in 2013 with the new act, a modern act, if you consider this act or overall the coordination of food safety authority in Bangladesh, you see that the safe and diverse and exotic agro produce we have, we have a lot of agricultural produce. We have to make that agricultural produce safe and nutritious for all the people. And for having that, we need a food safety management system in food supply chain. Actually Food Safety Act 2013 provides this modern food safety management system in Bangladesh. So we are currently practicing that food safety management system, modern food safety management system under the view of this Food Safety Act 2013. So this is another important thing so we can say. If you consider the science based RICS, science based and RICS based food safety management system also started under that Food Safety Act. So now we manage, we try to manage the food safety in Bangladesh or to ensure the food security and nutrition in Bangladesh having science based, evidence based policies and RICS based approach so that we can do right things and for right time. And now if you consider the approach of food safety in Bangladesh, we would say that this is a time that we are shifting the paradigm from a reactive to proactive approach. That means basically previously in Bangladesh, we are doing food controls by a reactive approach. That means the end product inspection and the event based activities but under this Food Safety Act. Now we are shifting from reactive to proactive. That means the preventive approach of food safety so that the non-compliances in the production level and the self-compliance systems can be adapted so that food in the supply chain will be more safe and you will need more, less effort to control in the end product system. So these are actually the basic elements and basic approach that we are trying to manage in food safety system in Bangladesh. And if I consider that even based on the safety of agricultural crops or agro-producers, what are the aspects we can consider? Presently, you see that accredited testing of laboratory is a challenge in Bangladesh. We do not have that much very high level accredited testing laboratory so that we can compliance every food for export or domestic purpose. Also, we are trying to maintain the coordinated monitoring systems through the organizations like the Department of Agricultural Extension or Department of Plant Quarantine and other agro-produced related organizations. So we have a responsibility to coordinate those organizations so that the good agricultural practice or good producing practice and forced harvest loss can be addressed. So this is the way we are doing currently. Actually, central packing system or packaging improvement is another aspects that is also responsible for loss of nutrition and the risk of food safety in the agro-produces. As I mentioned, almost 18 to 20% of foods are wasted in the post-harvest phase. These are basically mostly due to inappropriate packaging and preservation systems not in place. So this is very, very concern about that. And also if you don't have the good agriculture practice and certification system, basically the export will be declined and the export will be not boasting in that situation. And traceability system is also responsible for that kind of management for safety. Dr. Manzo, I would just like to clarify that you have five more minutes, please. Yeah, I'll finish shortly. If you consider that aquatic origin of foods, I cannot say that all these aquatic origins, we are focusing for good aquatic practice, national residue control plans and all kinds of compliance is necessary for the Bangladesh system. So the safety of meat and poultry is same. Food safety management coordination in Bangladesh Food Safety Authority is a central position. And we are coordinating all these, you know, the primary productions limited organizations so that we can do better food safety management in Bangladesh for the primary productions like the maintenance safety products. And also if you consider the overall management, the main focus is the, for primary production is good agriculture practice, livestock practice, agriculture practice and for manufacturing and distributions, good manufacturing practice, hygiene practice as well. And ISO or other side of the traditional systems. So what is actually the Food Safety Authority is doing is the priority for multi-agency coordination is important, address the gaps and lapses food control system based inspection and shifting from end product inspection to preventive approach. So in this slide, you can see the BFSA is coordinating with more than 18 ministries and some 35 divisions. So focus is to have a better coordination for better food safety management. And lastly, I can see the, what I showed, sorry for delay. We are doing some of the important activities like public awareness and media activities, television clips, trilogy and play leaflets for posters for public awareness and caravan shows and other things for, you know, the things and monitoring and awareness. We are doing a lot of activities. We have been monitoring and some gradings and hotel activities and other aspects as well. So after that, this is the conclusion of my presentation. Thank you very much. You can see some pictures. These are actually the lovely and longest sandy beach in Cox's Bazaar. Thank you very much for hearing me. Thank you. So this is over to Dominic. Thank you. Thank you so much, Dr. Monzo, for such a great presentation. And I must say, I was able, when I was a field representative in your country to testify all the efforts that have been done to really put food safety at the fore and really to highlight also the political way, again, to my own key element, to really lead to the adoption of the Food Safety Act and the creation of the Bangladesh Food Safety Authority, recognizing that without food safety, you cannot achieve food security. What is, I think, also very striking in your presentation is the shift from, indeed, as you said, a reactive approach to a proactive approach. And of course, all the effort it takes and the interaction, the multi-sectoral dimension of the effort you are coordinating in collaboration with so many ministries. So again, don't know that. Thank you so much for this presentation. And it is now my pleasure to give the floor to Professor William Chen, the director of the Food Science and Technology Program at the Singapore's Nanyang Technological University, who will speak about food safety considerations for accelerating the transition to sustainable energy and inclusive food system. Professor Chen, the floor is yours. Let me see. Oh, sorry, I need to... To use the slideshow, right? Yes, yes, yes. Can I try to find this one? Yes, this one, please. Can you see me? Can you see the slides? Perfect, perfect. Please go ahead, Chen. Okay. Good morning. Thank you very much for inviting me to share our experience in Singapore. You may ask what has Singapore got to do with food security? Being a small city-state in the Southeast Asia, well, food security is very much on our mind. We have been pushing different measures to develop tech-driven urban farming practices in the city-state. The idea here is not very much to ensure the self-reliance of the food supply in Singapore, but rather to provide a developer buffer to sort of absorb the shocks of any food supply chain disruptions, as we can see. This is increasingly getting commonplace. So in addition to Mr. Bujong's description, thank you very much for the introduction. I'm also running two national food initiatives in Singapore. One is I'm the scientific director for Singapore Future-Ready Food Safety Hub. And the second one is I'm the director for Singapore Upgrade Food Innovation Lab. So by being involved in this national food initiative, I sort of have some good perspective on what is being done and what needs to be done. So if I may move to the next slide. So as I mentioned, Singapore is a very small city-state. We have the area size of Singapore is only 700 kilometers square. It's about 50 kilometers times 30 kilometers. So if we drive a car, we have to brake early because if not, after an hour, we may end up in the sea. So it's very small. And on top of that, we only have less than 1% of the land for farming. Why is this? If you look at this slide, it shows the challenges facing Singapore food security. On this left-hand side, what you see is actually shrinking farmland over the years since the mid-60s when we gained independence. The green area indicated farmland space at the time of independence and with a push for industrialization and urbanization towards a higher-value economy, we let go the farmland. And the trade-off is actually to import food from many countries. Right now, so much so that with a strong economic growth, now we have less than 1% of farmland as shown here at the bottom. And we import more than 90% of food from 160 or 70 countries. So in peacetime, there's no problem. We can secure food supply over the place. But as a lot of external factors are actually getting very fluid, as we can see in the climate change, the heat wave that is heating the whole world now, and then the war in the Ukraine, and the COVID-19 pandemic. All these actually are showing that the food supply chain is actually very fragile. So there's a need to develop urban farming practice in the small city, say, in Singapore. How do we do with so little land? Well, one way is to develop vertical farming, indoor farming, and then also agriculture. The second challenge based in Singapore food security is the food waste. As a few speakers I mentioned earlier, this is actually a global problem. I always put a comparison between the food waste and the food supply in the sense that it's like a kitchen water tap. If we're on the tap, we don't use water. No amount of water is enough. Likewise for food, if we do not maximize the food utilization, then no amount of primary production will be sufficient to meet the demand of the world, in particular with the growing world population. The third one is actually the aging population. For those who have been to Singapore, you will see that it's a very fast paced place. People work very hard, and not many children are being produced. So as a result, it's a fast aging population. The key here is that the nutrition requirement for the aging population is very different from the young and dynamic society. So if we produce food that is not appreciated or accepted by the elderly, then we are also contributing to food waste. So when we look at these three elements, so there's a very strong need to develop an efficient food system with open farming as a starting point in Singapore because this is where we can transfer technology, skill set into the farming practice. And so this is what we are showing here, sorry, what we are showing here is that we develop, when we develop an open farming system to try to create an efficient production system, there's also sort of a natural initiative to move towards a circular economy, meaning that whatever we produce, whatever we have utilized as a food, we'll try to reconnect that to the food chain. So initially when we look at all this innovation, as we saw here, natural food preservative through precision fermentation, nutrient recovery from processing side stream like soybean residue or converting the remaining residue into packing material. All these are part and parcel of the food circular economy, but they are concerned about this. I would like to show you some examples of what we've been doing. For example, in terms of, I will skip this one, this is a talent development of to sort of sustain the future food security push in Singapore. So we have partnered with the GFI to educate a young mind to move into the food sector. At the bottom one shows a three example of sort of alternative food that are either produced in Singapore or being approved in Singapore. As you may have read, Singapore is the first country in the world to approve the cultivated chicken meat to commercial production for consumer use. And as I mentioned, some of the nutrient recover from the processing side stream have been reconnected back to the food chain. In this case, we have used this fermented barley spangry from the brewery or from making a nutritional beverage. After the fermentation, we have tried the protein component. And then we use it as emulsifier to replace the egg yolk in the mayonnaise. So this is sort of a plant-based mayonnaise that we created in Singapore. Alongside we have also sort of a look for replacement ingredient for the cultivated meat, culture medium. This is a costly component for the cultivated meat industry. So this is another example of how we are applying innovation to create efficient and low-cost urban farming practice for the alternative food. So the question here is that are they also good? You take two, three more minutes to... Okay, all right, okay. So the area for consideration is that when we create the food circular economy, are we also circulating the food safety hazard? One example is actually the mycotoxin that is actually present on the outside surface of this side stream, for example, body or soybean residue. Another concern maybe is that when we look for this replacement ingredient for the medium of cultivated meat, this is all safe. And there's also a tendency to apply this inside farming, feed inside all the food waste and then let the inside be the fish feed. So the concern here is that in the food waste, you also have a lot of heavy metal and plastic waste that they associate with the food waste. So these are some of the examples which highlight the need that when we push for urban farming towards higher yield and higher nutrition, we also need to take consideration of a higher safety assessment. This is my last slide. So the way forward is that we can see that the higher nutrition has to be assessed together with the higher safety. So these two are interconnected. And the urban farming production will not replace traditional farming, but it provides a new option for future food system. And the amount is urban farming practice will have alternative food sources. And the food cycle economy can be efficient, part of the efficient food system, but the food safety need to be part of this assessment. So the way forward is to develop a proactive approach to ensure the safety of high nutrition food on the future food system. And for future food, we clearly need to associate tech innovation with the safety assessment. This is my last slide. Thank you for your attention. Thank you so much, indeed, Professor Chen for your presentation, for presenting the very particular context of Singapore, why food security indeed is so important. And then indeed presenting the work you do on food security economy, the alternative food, coming to the point of urban food production, presenting the importance of the proactive approach to indeed diversify that sort of production through innovation, et cetera. But then I very much appreciated the slide you had on the questions that need to be considered while working on these elements. And this reminded me a very important publication of FAO, which I don't know if you can see, but it's about thinking about the future of food safety, a foresight report, which is my... I have read that. I have read that, yeah. And which indeed need to be considered. And just let me do that to show you, to show everybody that report. And we'll share the link, Diana can probably share the link. Thank you so much indeed. Again, Professor Chen for your presentation. And I would like now to move to Dr. Augustine Okorora, the head of Eat Safe Country Program at Gain, Nigeria. We speak about addressing food safety in traditional markets to benefit consumer diets and nutrition and the case of Eat Safe in Nigeria. So Dr. Okorora, the floor is yours and apologies again for messing up a bit the sequence of speakers, but very happy to have you over here. Good afternoon. Good afternoon everyone and from Nigeria. Yeah, we can hear you, please go ahead. But your slideshow seems to be moving. Okay, it's okay. So Dr. Okorora will be talking about addressing food safety in traditional markets to improve nutrition, the Eat Safe experience in Nigeria, the program. This is a future USAID funded project and it is evidence and action towards safe nutritious food. The traditional market is a reference point for food safety challenges in Nigeria. But as we look at Nigeria as a country and globally, consuming fossil food can result in foodborne disease, which we know, then in Nigeria, annually, foodborne disease is responsible for about one sub-3 million diarrhea disease cases and out of that, 33,000 deaths. And in Nigeria, foodborne disease related to food safety issues are over 200 deaths. And that's a cause for concern. Then the focus of the Eat Safe program is on traditional food markets in Nigeria. But we also are working in Ethiopia, but this will focus on Nigeria. So in Nigeria, millions of Nigerians buy food from traditional markets. And at this traditional market, supply and demand intersects. And that is where the interconnection of food safety and nutrition becomes very evident. As a concern, the vendors and the consumers, livelihoods for the vendors, community building for communal living, food safety issues coming and then food security as an integral part of national planning and economy development and also for community level food security. And regulations for safety regulations often focus only on former food sectors overlooking informal shops and traditional markets where majority of houses in Nigeria purchase their food and thereby also increasing foodborne disease rigs if there is no regulation of this sector, properly by the local municipal or local government authorities. Eat Safe approach. We're working in two states in Nigeria, Sokoto and Kebbi states. We are currently focusing on enabling lasting improvements in the safety of nutritious food in traditional markets through for interventions, the central market in Kebbi and the Korean market in Sokoto states. These four interventions have been designed through a human-centered design approach taking into consideration all stakeholders and partners on the project. And these four, the food safety stand based on the findings from our formative research, awareness creation, more information is needed across the entire value chain and specifically for the consumers. So we are planning a food safety stand at both markets and we have five food safety account staff that will be trained on food safety to provide information to consumers and other market artists, all aspects of food safety. We also have a radio show, radio through our formative research analysis shows that that has the widest reach in both Kebbi state and Sokoto state. And so a radio show will be done to provide information on food safety. And then we also have a brand initiative after being trained, we have spread behavioral change among the vendors and others that have been trained and that brand is to encourage vendors to practice what they have been taught about food safety institute in the marketplace. In order to bring an alliance into motion to be able to ensure that food safety is considered a priority and commonly used as a means of reference to ensure that every consumer, every vendor, every value chain actor is concerned. We have formed an association for a promotion of food safety and improved nutrition. And this is bringing together all these stakeholders and activities to involve mobilization, sensitization and trainees. What opportunities do we have as far as food safety is concerned and its impact on development economically and otherwise? So prioritizing food safety supports these SDGs, two, three, six, 11, 12 and 17. And these are significant SDGs, which ensures that if these components that have food safety are properly implemented, you have a role that is a strategy goal of the SDGs to be achieved in Nigeria in particular. Because of 90% of Nigerians access fresh foods, nutritious food from traditional markets, making these settings a key focus area for impact if we want the SDGs to work. They have worked with relations, communities of practice and commitments to food safety. I imagine nationally and create an enabling environment for improving safety. Just yesterday at the National Assembly, the food safety and quality they had is public hearing and all stakeholders made their input and their submissions. And we are waiting for the outcome of whether it's going to progress or whether it's going to be stepped down for review. The key challenge is consumer in Nigeria express less satisfaction in government activities at ensuring food and water safety compared to global averages. The essence of the issue is how many in as one. Consumers risk possession of food safety does not always align with risk reality. That's the truth. Microbial partners are mostly responsible for the food bond disease. For thousands and pesticides are top of mind for consumers. And it's a real issue in Nigeria. A real issue, pesticides and netizens, micro-tossings and the rest. National government structures often focus only on formative sectors, like I earlier said, overlooking street food stores, informal shops and return markets and that contains high risk. And in Nigeria, food safety and quality to be have not been entered into law. That be was first drafted in 2016 and up to today that, like I said, it was just yesterday that the public hearing was done. What are the solutions that we may look at? We have to prioritize food safety as a foundational pillar for nutrition. That is the intersection, that is the interface. Food security and development initiatives and efforts. We have to cultivate a culture of food safety consciously through multisetora engagement as all have your own to play when it comes to food safety. It is everyone's business. We have to build on existing efforts in policy, health and economic development to maximize positive impact. Food safety is not only a foundation for nutrition. Football disease can affect nutrient intake and metabolism. This can impact a variety of human health outcomes and have long life-long effects. And when you now consider children's growth, nutrient assumption, gut anise and other diseases, then food safety interstation with nutrition must be given the needed support and strategic funding for research and additional implementation of behavioral change programs that will enable consumers, vendors, transporters, market authority, research and academia, consumer associations to be concerned about food safety and be a part of the solution by taking the necessary action since food safety is everyone's business. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, indeed Dr. Okorowa for presenting the work that you are doing in Nigeria in the context of the Eat Safe program. The challenges which you are facing, but then with a focus on indeed the traditional markets, what I very much like is you are promoting the importance of prioritizing food safety, but you are bringing the contribution through evidence. So it's about evidence-building, policy-making, evidence-based, sorry, policy-making by having the testing of different approaches, et cetera, which is indeed very good and then promoting, of course, the culture of food safety, which is very important. So again, thank you very much, Dr. Okorowa for that. And we now enter the panel discussion segment of our webinar and our panelists today will reflect on the case studies presented and discuss actions to bring food safety and nutrition together through an agri-food system approach. And I will now give the floor to my colleague, Dirk Schultz, who is a food safety officer at the FAO, will be facilitating the discussion. Dirk, great to see you. And the floor is yours to moderate this discussion. Thank you very much, Dominique. And welcome everybody to this section on the panel discussion. In the interest of time, and we are about 10 to 15 minutes behind our schedule, I will skip my introductory remarks and move straight away to introducing our panel members who will discuss actions to bring food safety and nutrition together through an agri-food systems approach. So first off, we have Dr. Stella Nordhagen, Senior Technical Specialist, Gain, the Global Alliance for Proof of Nutrition, whom you've heard before already. Next up, we have Mr. Jose Valdbordeau, the Policy Officer at the FAO Food Systems and Food Safety Division. And last but not least, Dr. Luz Maria Deregel from our sister agency, the World Health Organization, where she is the head of the Multisexual Action in Food Systems Unit. Welcome all. And as I said, our time is not on our side in this section, so I'm going to start with a question for Luz. Luz, can you reflect on the implications of the Singapore case study, but the others as well, of course, with regards to actions that support food safety and sustainability. Over to you. Thank you very much, Derek. I first would like to express my gratitude for this invitation. Two years ago, the Department of Nutrition and Food Safety merged in Wichon. And with that, I think that we are trying to build more synergies between these two areas to contribute to the global targets for nutrition, non-communicable diseases, and now the recently approved targets for food safety. So I'm delighted with this conversation and particularly with all the country cases that have been shared. I think that I would just like to talk about four points for consideration. The first part is terminology. I think that there is no international harmonization for the terminology for many of these novel products that we have heard now. We hear cultivated meat, also referred as sales-based meat, cultured meat, slaughter-free meat, et cetera, and terminology matters because it may lead to gaps in regulations and also to a lot of confusion. So important to address that. I want to say that the Codex Alimentarios has already started working this topic and it's already circulating letters seeking input from member states and observers on the topic, and issues like regulatory issues, labeling, nutrition, food safety aspects are considered within this letter of novel products. The second point that I want to make is about technology. It represents a huge potential to produce these type of products in a more sustainable way. However, new technology needs to be tested. New processes need to be tested. New ingredients need to be tested. Are we talking about culture, media, growth factors, residue levels, et cetera? So from the food safety perspective, although we are creating more sustainable solutions, still we have to walk the path and make sure that these products are safe, properly labeled, et cetera. And I just want to make a call because I think that it's very important in this process, governments need to work with academia, private sector, et cetera. And also, I mean, of course, as U.N. agencies, we need to support throughout the process as much as possible because all this information is critical for regulators. The case of Singapore particularly, I think that is amazing. It's very interesting because it's the first country to approve a cultivated need for commercialization. So we are learning from what we just heard. And the Singapore Food Agency just published guidance on the requirements for the safety assessment of noble foods, including requirements on the information to be submitted for approval of all these type of products. And I would say that a very interesting case is that they are updating the publication because new discussions are coming. I think that it has been updated three times since it was published in 2019. So I think that it's important that we follow this case because it's a pioneer in this area, but also we are learning about terminology, about how to include the different evidence in these type of regulations. And the last part that I want to make is about integration with nutrition and the non-communicable disease agenda. While the shift of towards products of non-animal sources is desirable from the sustainability point of view, and sometimes from the prevention of non-communicable diseases, I want to highlight that the products, the food products with these food proteins are not necessarily healthier. We can see in the market many products that are high process, highly processed that are high in sugar, unhealthy fats and sodium. So for example, some vegan products that you currently find everywhere do not meet the recommended profile for salt saturated fats. And these ingredients currently are used to improve the sensory characteristics of these proteins, but from the nutritional point of view, they are not desirable or do not match the profile that we want to see. On the nutrition side, I want to just highlight that an emerging area that food additives that are added to these products also need to be assessed not only from the food safety side, but also on the effects on nutrition and on some of the bio-mechemical precursors of non-communicable diseases. The current many of the food safety risk assessments do not include those outcomes at this point. So it's important that we see this in a more comprehensive picture. And the last point, because I know that we are short of time, I want to say that we quantify the effects of these potential effects in the burden of disease. For example with contaminants or chemical contaminants or toxins like aflatoxins, they have an important contribution to the non-communicable disease agenda with liver cancer, for example. And we need to quantify it better to be able to better advocate for the management and prevention of all these diseases. Because if we are promoting food safety throughout the supply chain, we need to ensure that short-term effects are taken into account, but also long-term effects are quantified as part of the global burden of disease. I will stop here. Thank you so much, Luz. I think you made some excellent and very insightful remarks. And I think these are particularly pertinent for the transformation of modern urban agri-food systems that will be needed to the 2030 agenda and beyond as our populations as farming areas shrink and as modern technology brings new ways of ensuring hopefully good nutrition amongst our people. So once again, thank you for those excellent remarks. Next I would like to move on to Jose, who is as a policy officer well-placed to respond perhaps to a question more on the policy side of things. Jose from what you've heard today, what lessons do you think we can learn for food systems policy action to enhance the link between food safety and nutrition? Over to you. Thank you very much, Dirk and I want also to thank the organizers for the invitation. And I think this is a really exciting discussion. Congratulations to the researchers as well that are indeed bringing many lessons. As we heard food safety and nutrition have a critical role to play in achieving the sustainable development goals. And we know that we are not in track in most of the SDGs that are related to agri-food systems like targets on the SDG2 on hunger on security on nutrition but also on SDG3 that relates to more the health and the bone diseases not communicable diseases so many other SDGs and what we are seeing is that in order for the food safety and nutrition to really play a positive role and have an impact in achieving these different targets we will only do it if we can identify the trade-offs between these different actions and these different outcomes. Once we understand them we can address them, we can limit the trade-offs but we can also leverage the synergies that we've seen, we've heard a lot of examples and even now from Luth right now. So one of the most important lessons that came across is the need for a food system approach to multiply the benefits and the co-benefits when dealing with both food safety and nutrition issues. Meaning addressing the different aspects with a holistic perspective to consider these trade-offs to consider also the possible synergies and in this case we are talking about the link between food safety and nutrition but of course food safety also has implications in climate change and vice versa also implications on the economy so does nutrition so they are all interconnected and we need to consider all the elements of the systems together so looking at the choices that are made at production level but also the choices that are made at consumption level and looking at the different interconnected outcomes of the agri-food systems as a whole which are not only on health and nutrition but also on livelihoods, environment you name it. So how can you translate that into concrete action and starting at policy level? We heard today indeed some very good examples of some of the key entry points that can enable and that can accelerate the adoption of action but one of them is the multistakeholder collaboration and trying to break silos or at least make bridges between silos because of course addressing these trade offs that are coming in consistently and they are trade offs between competing objectives they are related to different actors, different sectors that have often different perceptions and different interests different power also so they require negotiation they require not only information sharing but really sometimes negotiation and coordination. It includes multi-sectoral coordination mechanisms and we saw the example of Bangladesh where the food safety agencies working together with the other ministries and agencies as part of a whole system because the decisions affect the whole system being agriculture, in health in trade etc. So this multistakeholder collaboration also means ensuring the participation of all the relevant actors from producers to consumers sometimes also bringing them closer among themselves through improved food environments and we saw the very good example of Nigeria on the traditional markets another of the entry points is data analytics. We need metrics to assess the implication of the actions in different outcomes and we've been hearing it today as well we need to identify those trade offs but also quantify those trade offs the possible synergies between food safety and nutrition and these two to increase the understanding but also to explore what are the appropriate and balanced solutions that can be offered without data without assessment it's very difficult. The data and also would the appropriate metrics would allow the performance and the progress over time in these synergies. Another of the entry points that came across very importantly and actually about is the technological innovation with the example from Singapore and actually one of the entry points for more sustainable food systems and an accelerator to leverage different synergies and sometimes also address some of the trade offs is technological innovation. We also need an holistic approach in identifying the appropriate types of innovation that are needed in different contexts so they have to really be adapted to the context and this is a bit also what Luz was referring to. Also we need to ensure that we manage the distribution of the impacts of this innovation across different stakeholders and thinking especially of the most disadvantaged and the last of the entry points, policy entry points that I would like to mention now is the need to coherent policies and investment that can talk to each other and that's why also assessment but also coordination is so important. Today for example we have 100 countries that have a national pathway to transform their food systems these national pathways come as a result of the UN food system summit process of last year in 2021 and the countries have been presenting their different pathways out of these pathways there are 45 of them and they include Bangladesh and Nigeria that have included in their national pathways the food quality and safety as one of the priority areas with specific actions and sometimes in synergy with their more nutrition targeted action. These actions in the pathways there is a database where you can find all the pathways and you can look all these aspects that we have been mentioning today, improving data risk assessment mechanism, regulatory frameworks, food control system standards improving consumer information and the engagement of consumers that is also a place where it intersects between food safety and nutrition, human research capacities etc all those are included in these national pathways for food system transformation and having them all together with the different dimensions can help better addressing these trade-offs and really starting to integrate a lot of these aspects just to highlight that taking the sustainable food system approach and this more integrated and coherent policy frameworks is really providing an opportunity to food safety and nutrition for example to get the attention that they deserve and we know and it was mentioned also at the beginning that sometimes they are hidden behind other interests or other priorities but this opportunity needs to be seized definitely and also they can help inspiring integrated action and integrated thinking especially by national governments and stakeholders who has more sustainability in all its dimension taking into account the different issues at country level I would leave it also saying that a lot of these lessons actually resonate with the lessons that were presented at the beginning from the last and all previous dialogue so hopefully this is really contributing to this body of lessons and knowledge that we are generating thank you very much thank you Jose and wow that was certainly a lot of information I think the important ones like assessing troughs, coordination of stakeholders and the others I think they put towards the complexity that exists in systems transformation and in systems thinking in general the approach is challenging but it all solves a lot of opportunities so thanks again for that and now we will move on to our last panelist we've already heard from Stella so Stella what integrated actions can a country take to bring food safety together using an aggregate food systems approach perhaps you might want to mention your work with private sector over to you maybe if you can just keep it as short as possible please in the interest of time and the other commenters we might hear from over to you Stella sure no problem Dirk great question and indeed we we don't have much time but luckily we've already heard many great examples of this in this webinar so I would say three things first focus on the right foods in order to improve diet quality it's necessary to focus on policies and programs that promote highly nutritious foods and that make those more affordable more accessible and more desirable but as we've heard a few times today those foods tend to have relatively higher food safety risks so those policies and programs need to go hand in hand with ensuring safety throughout the supply chain as well as within the household and I think professor Chen gave a great example of doing this on the supply side from Singapore and on the demand side a kind of simple concrete example one can imagine would be a promotional campaign for vegetables that also included messaging on safe handling of them when preparing them in the home second I would say in specifically thinking of low and middle income countries it's important to focus on the traditional and informal sector as Augustin did in his remarks most lower income consumers in these countries obtain their food from outlets like traditional open-air markets and street vendors and those outlets play an essential role in food security and nutrition but they also face specific challenges from a food safety standpoint such as a lack of access to clean water sometimes policies will seek to replace those with modern retail in an effort to upgrade the food safety situation but that can result in disenfranchisement of livelihoods as well as lack of access to safe and nutritious foods for the most vulnerable consumers so it's important to work with them improve their food safety standards in feasible ways and ensure that access to nutrition food is continued a good example of this comes from the clean street food hubs that have been developed in India where a group of street food vendors are grouped together they're trained and they're certified to provide safe street foods so that people know where they can go to get foods that are both affordable and safe and finally I'd say that it's it's really important to understand the motivations and the incentives that are faced by those within the food system as it relates to both food safety and nutrition and then to design people-centered approaches based on those so when I was talking earlier I mentioned how there's some research in lower income countries showing that consumers might choose highly processed packaged foods because they perceive those as being safer and that for them is a rational decision within that context based on what they know about food safety through other outlets so telling them about how unhealthy it is to have these foods that are high in salt, sugar and fat is unlikely to result in consumption changes unless that food safety barrier is addressed so an example of an intervention that's trying to do that is some work that some of my colleagues are doing in Kenya where they're trying to address increasing demand for vegetables in a context where people are really worried about excessive pesticide content in vegetables by creating a kind of brand that certifies things that are both nutritious and safe so that consumers who are looking for vegetables can identify those that don't have a high level of pesticides within them at the market. Great, thank you Stella for those concise remarks but very pertinent I must say in the interest of time I'd just like to thank the panelists for excellent interventions I think all three of you made some really really great points and without further due I'm handing back to Dominique Dominique back to you please. Well thank you very much indeed dear but thank you also to you for facilitating the panel but thanks a lot to Luz Stella and Jose for a sort of reflecting on the extremely good presentation that we had today and I think this is really what we want to promote in these dialogues is really the this capacity to extract lessons from examples from the field and documenting them going forward again in this process so time has come to conclude and as we said it has been again a fascinating discussion to hear about the three examples which we got and to consider the different elements that need to be in place to bring together a great food system food safety and nutrition work is as I said clearly needed to align the agendas and what we have heard today shows both the opportunities and the challenges in doing so I would urge participants to take it and learn from this experience and invest in agendic food system approaches to make to making changes as for the previous dialogue we will be extracting some of the key take home messages and preliminary conclusions from this discussion and propose then to you at the beginning of our next webinar and we hope to have you Derek to be able to summarize these findings and recommendations I would like to express of course my sincere gratitude to all the distinguished speakers from the various parts of the world for their presentation but also for the very active engagement in the Q&A session because while we were reflecting in the panel where we were in the various case studies there was a very rich dialogue that was taking place in the Q&A session we make sure we report on that and this is all included in the material that is put online I should say also that today even though we are in the middle of the summer here in Europe we had over 100 participants which is also very encouraging I would like to take to also thank our Geneva partners WHO, Gain and San and to the colleagues of course in the Food and Nutrition Division as well as the Food System and Food Safety Division as well as the FAO Office in Brussels my own office here in Geneva for organizing this webinar Last but not least our gratitude goes of course to you participants for taking your time and joining this first event of the FAO in Geneva Nutrition Dialogue Series thank you all for your attendance and please do join us for our next webinar in September on the topic of food based dietary guidelines which would be promised to be again very interesting so with that good rest of the day wherever you are in the world looking forward to engage with you on this very very important topic bye bye bye bye bye bye thank you bye thank you bye thank you bye