Foresight in food safety featured at the World Food Forum

At the FAO-hosted World Food Forum in Rome, Vittorio Fattori and Keya Mukherjee from the Agrifood Systems and Food Safety Division presented how foresight can be used to strengthen food safety.

Agrifood systems today are evolving rapidly. Among the changes, global drivers and trends are affecting food safety in many different ways. “Foresight enables looking at emerging issues through a system lens by encouraging a holistic way of evaluating both opportunities and challenges in food safety," said Fattori.

The presentation explored the food safety implications of a range of areas identified through the FAO Food Safety Foresight Programme, including climate change, consumer behaviour and food consumption patterns, new food sources and food production systems, technological advances, microbiome science, circular economy and food fraud.

The 2022 FAO publication, Thinking about the future of food safety A foresight report, delves into these topics more in depth, he told the audience

“FAO is well placed to collect, analyse and disseminate information on emerging issues. But foresight is a participatory approach and we need to work together to ensure that the global food safety community is prepared to navigate the challenges and take advantage of the benefits ahead,” said Mukherjee.

Read more about FAO’s work on foresight

Videos
Using foresight in food safety
Climate change is threatening the safety of our food

Photo: © FAO