Launched before Christmas, the Global
Food Safety Partnership is a public-private partnership with the aim
of increased food safety capacity.
Massey’s Professor of Agribusiness Hamish
Gow (pictured), winner of a major international award for an open source food safety
knowledge network, will take a leading role in the multi-agency structure.
“The goal is to build a food safety system
suitable for supporting the delivery of safe, affordable food for everyone,
everywhere, all of the time,” says Gow.
The partnership will utilise an open
educational model that would enable individuals, firms, non-governmental
organisations, governments and international agencies to collaborate.
Massey will facilitate the working groups
that will provide technical input and expertise into the design of the
partnership and associated programmes. Ross Davies of the School of Engineering
and Advanced Technology in the College of Sciences will act as project manager
for Massey’s part of the initiative.
These working groups will cover the
establishment of the open source platform (or information resource), an
effective communications strategy and technical aspects including training
materials, quality control, service provision and delivery systems.
“We
need innovative solutions to share best practice, increase adoption, build
capacity, lower delivery costs and more generally improve food safety systems
across the developing world,” Gow says.
“The science of food safety is already well
established, what we need to do now is package that knowledge appropriately for
food producers, manufacturers, retailers and distributors and consumers so it
is relevant to them. It is not so much a scientific problem as a business
development and community development problem.”
