Introduction
The food sector, along with medicines, is arguably one of the most monitored industries in the world. This is a little price to pay regarding the lives at stake. In recent years, there has been an increase in food safety incidents from diverse sources. These events have included, among others, tampering, bioterrorism, unregulated standards, and errors arising from a scientific possibility. With the increased availability of information on food safety, the globe is witnessing significant attempts to create novel, cost-effective, and ecologically friendly strategies for preserving the quality and structural integrity of foods and agricultural commodities.
Food tampering
Food tampering refers to purposefully manipulating or contaminating food to cause harm to the consumer. Although tampering differs from contamination by accident, it is classified under the same category. It can involve physical contamination with objects such as glass, cement, and fiber. Tampering can be chemicals such as poisons and bleach (Carvalho,2017). Biological contamination involves contact with microbes, pathogens, and even body fluids. Methods of preventing contamination are specific to the environment of exposure.
Bioterrorism
Food terrorism is defined as the purposeful poisoning of food or food sources using chemical, biological, or radioactive agents to injure or kill civilians and upset social, socioeconomic, or stability regarding politics and governance. Bioterrorism refers to the manipulation of the biological aspect of a plant, at times on a genetic level. To use those alterations to cause harm (Carvalho,2017). Terrorists can target food supply at various points throughout the food chain. Agricultural bioterrorism, often known as agroterrorism, is intentionally targeting livestock and farm products during harvesting, storage, or transportation. An agroterrorism strike in the United States would massively affect the economy, making it economic warfare. Economic warfare involves the destruction of a country’s infrastructure through the deployment of a biological weapon. The cattle business in the United States alone generates around $150 billion yearly, making it a significant target(Carvalho,2017).
Processed food terrorism can involve the Contamination of food items during processing, production, packaging, shipping, delivery, or service. An outbreak may be gradual, broad, and at first, unnoticeable depending on the biological agent and the type of infected food before exploding into a pandemic (Taylor, 2008). The government has created several initiatives and programs for preventing, monitoring, and control directed towards this terrorism.
Food safety and barriers
Food must be preserved and kept secure throughout the supply chain for domestic d international trade. International public standards like Codex Alimentarius and internationally recognized food safety standards, among others, ensure that these standards are upheld. These standards vary in each country regarding retail and public declared standards. The laws and regulations governing food safety are typically published under the auspices of regional and national standards agencies. Food authorities enforce these laws and regulations (Koku, 2022). The industrialized nations should adopt rules for various types of food. There are, however, variations in the requirements for quality. This is due to differences in the environments in which the crops are grown, the weather conditions, and the raw resources used in the production(Koku, 2022). Some barriers to effective standard implementation in a country include the lack of effective communication between the parties at play. Resources that lack to implement these policies lack proper funding. There is a lack of a commitment to continual upkeep of the equipment and facilities, as well as a continuous supply of information from credible and well-funded sources. This is needed to sustain the program’s effectiveness. Food security threats threaten supply, without which political upheavals would be unavoidable.
Conclusion
The convergence and centralization of food and agriculture businesses and the globalization of food commerce are altering food production and distribution patterns. These factors foster an atmosphere where both recognized and unknown food-borne illnesses can spread. New food safety concerns will develop due to the changing ways in production and supply. Environmental changes that cause food contamination must be checked with stringent measures against the offenders. This will enable accurate identification and prevention of multistate epidemics, outbreaks, and acts of terror against food resources(Koku, 2022). The spike in food safety issues indicates a significant global knowledge of foods in international trade. This has made Several international governing agencies and committees create several proposals to address food safety concerns. Furthermore, economic damages and destabilization of a particular country due to food safety concerns might be prevented.
References
Carvalho, F. P. (2017). Pesticides, environment, and food safety. Food and energy security, 6(2), 48-60.
Koku, P. S. (2022). On the Legal Liabilities of Food Tampering in the US: A Review & Marketing Implications. In Academy of Marketing Science Annual Conference-World Marketing Congress (pp. 505-513). Springer, Cham.
Lane, D., Husemann, E., Holland, D., & Khaled, A. (2019). Understanding foodborne transmission mechanisms for Norovirus: A study for the UK’s Food Standards Agency. European Journal of Operational Research, 275(2), 721-736.
Mbow, C., Rosenzweig, C., Barioni, L. G., Benton, T. G., Herrero, M., Krishnapillai, M., … & Xu, Y. (2019). Food security.
Taylor, M. K. (2008). Food terrorism and food defense on the web. Medical Reference Services Quarterly, 27(1), 81-96.
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