Retired director of the Government Analyst Food and Drugs Department Marilyn Collins has said that if Guyana is to increase its global market share in agricultural products, serious attention must be paid to significantly raising the standards of our research and testing facilities associated with ensuring that our food exports reach the increasingly high standards that are being demanded by the major importing countries.
In an article on the science of food safety written for the Stabroek Business, Collins notes that while agriculture already accounts “for approximately 32% of GDP, 30% of employment, and 40% of export earnings,” the export of nontraditional products, including fruits and vegetables, to Caricom and further afield can see agriculture’s contribution rise even further to an estimated 50% of the GDP on account of what she says is a comparative advantage which Guyana enjoys “in the export of other crops and livestock products, fruits and vegetables, and aquaculture. “It is therefore essential for Guyana to enhance the competitiveness of its industries of value added agricultural products, in quality and safety inspection and certification parameters,” Collins says.
What had up until then been widely regarded as a seriously under-resourced Food Analyst and Drugs Department became further denuded when the then political administration moved to shut down the Kingston premises of the department (the site currently forms part of the controversial Marriot Hotel) and relocate it to a modest space on the Turkeyen campus of the University of Guyana. Both Collins and current Director of the Department Marlon Cole have, on separate occasions, told this newspaper that the most serious setback suffered in the wake of the disbanding of the Kingston operations was the loss of the department’s laboratory facilities and, in effect, its capacity to cover all of the ground that it should in the area of food testing.
According to the local food safety expert, there is an urgent need for Guyana to respond to the rising bar of food safety standards currently in place in importing countries by utilizing “science-based measures” to “implement an aggressive food safety regulatory programme that includes the ability to address food safety from the farm to the table and the use of comparative risk assessment to prioritize public health action with emphasis on prevention, coupled with open decision making process involving the relevant stakeholders.”
Noting that indifference is not an option, Collins contends that as a signatory to the World Trade Organization (WTO) Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures, Guyana is “obligated to establish food safety systems that offer appropriate and adequate level of protection to its populace and its trading partners. This level of protection, she says, “is expected to be premised on sound scientific principles, demonstrating non-arbitrariness and brings into context the underpinning concepts of international rules.”
Contending that food safety as a consideration in relations between importing and exporting nations has become a critically important issue, Collins says that in this regard “Guyana must of necessity be committed to implementing food safety systems which, though not necessarily similar to those of other countries, can be expected to have the same outcomes, that is, the achievement of the required food safety objective standards.
Our certification systems must offer confidence in safeguarding public health, expose deceptive dangerous and deceptive trading g practices and facilitate trade on the basis of accurate product information,” she adds.
Meanwhile, Collins says in her article that if Guyana is to establish “a non-arbitrary and non-discriminating approach in the use of science based information… the generation of such scientific information warrants the availability of well-equipped and functioning laboratories.”
And according to Collins, while there are several state-run institutions that possess laboratories (including the Government Analyst Food and Drug Laboratory, Pesticide and Toxic Chemicals Laboratory, Public Health Laboratory, Plant Pathology and Entomology Laboratory, Central Analytical and Environmental Monitoring Service, Veterinary Surveillance and Diagnostic Laboratory and the Laboratories of the University of Guyana) “a survey of these laboratories will reveal that they are under equipped for the required analytical procedures, possess inadequately trained human resources, a paucity of consumables and inadequate laboratory quality management systems. The sum total of those deficiencies is a dearth of surveillance information, lack of scientific data to craft food safety objectives, food safety policies and the certification of foods and food safety systems,” Collins says. She adds that as a consequence of these limitations “the private sector could be affected through its inability to comply with pre and post shipment clearance mechanisms causing undue delays that could have detrimental impacts on trade such as detention and rejection of consignments with ultimate financial burden to exporters.
The time has come to rationalize, consolidate and strengthen laboratories to meet the demands of international trade and the protection of public health.”
And according to Collins, the underdevelopment of Guyana’s laboratory facilities has unfolded despite the fact that the country has been the recipient of “significant support” through technical cooperation programmes supported by international organisations such as the Food and Agricultural Organisation, (FAO) the Pan American Health Organization and the World Health Organization PAHO/WHO, the Inter American Cooperation in Agriculture (IICA) and the European Union (EU) through its European Development Fund (EDF) aimed at upgrading and strengthening laboratories “both in terms of infrastructure, instrumentation and training in various analytical procedures.” She notes, however, that, over time, “The laboratories were unable to replenish much needed chemicals and reagents, implement preventive maintenance programmes and replace obsolete equipment and instruments.”
