Japan is a country which has experience with past tragedies in unsafe food and has overcome this successfully with its strict law and administrative system on food safety. On the sidelines of the training course on the Enforcement of Consumer Protection Law and Japan’s experiences recently organised by JICA in Danang, Vietnam Business Forum conducted an interview with Ms Ayumi Edakubo, an expert from the National Consumer Affairs Centre of Japan (NCAC) about the solutions to Vietnam’s escalating unsafe food situation. Giang Tu reports
Can you comment about the importance of food safety and share experiences caused by tainted food in Japan?
I think that keeping good health is essential to our life. Therefore, it is the most fundamental and important for consumers to be sure about food safety.
Japan has experienced many sad cases which were caused by lack of food safety. For example, in 1955, Japan marked a 9 percent economic growth rate, but, on the other hand, Japan experienced its first incidence caused by polluted food. Some arsenic got mixed in powdered milk for babies, and because of that, 133 babies were killed and more than 12 thousand were injured.
Since then, incidences cased by polluted and/or unsafe food continued to happen. Over time, public concern to secure food safety has been raised. With such growing concern among people, the government has developed the law and administrative system for food safety.
In detail, what has Japan done to address this issue?
Japan strictly checks the safety of food additives and agricultural chemicals. In Japan, no one can make, sell, use or import food additives or agricultural chemicals which do not pass the government’s examination.
If you are to develop new agricultural chemicals, you will need a time of more than 10 years and budget of more than several billion yen because of such strict testing system.
So, to your mind, what solutions should Vietnam apply to avoid such tragedies and deal with unsafe food?
I hope that Vietnam can avoid such tragedy that Japan went through in the past and quickly strengthen the administrative system to secure food security, by which both producers and sellers will be motivated to handle safe food, backed up by the voice of the people who will be well informed about the risks of polluted, unhygienic, unsafe food, and the traceability of the food.
According to Japan’s experience, I think that the responsibility for food safety rests on the government, but consumer’s concern helps push food safety forward.
Consumers organize the co-op (consumer cooperative association) and sell and buy food after confirming food safety by themselves. Consumers actively participate in food safety.
I think that it is important to develop the administrative system not only to secure food safety, but also to preserve the rich food culture in Vietnam.
Vietnamese
