Food safety is crucial for citizens’ health. The Chemicals Administration of the Ministry of the Environment, therefore coordinates and engages in inter-ministerial collaboration to prevent chemical substances posing food safety risks and concerns from flowing into the food chain. This includes: the announcement of regulations to control the source and flow of chemical substances posing food safety concerns; the encouragement of self-management of chemical substances; conducting a comprehensive inventory; visits to verify proper management of chemical raw material suppliers and business entities; and enhancing communications and advocacy regarding the safe use and risk identification of chemical substances in communities, schools, business entities and other organizations. The objective thereof is to achieve President Tsai’s goals of implementing the “Five-Point Food Safety Policy” and “The First Point of Strengthening Source Control”.
To strengthening source control with inter-ministerial cooperation to prevent food safety risks, the Ministry of Environment, the Ministry of Health and Welfare, and the Ministry of Agriculture hold the "Environmental Protection and Food Safety Coordination Meeting" every quarter to coordinate environmental protection and food safety matters across ministries. Concurrently, the establishment of the "Environmental Protection and Food Safety Reporting and Response Handling Procedures," along with designated contact points, enables these agencies to jointly address emergency food safety incidents. Furthermore, in order to prevent food safety risks arising from environmental pollution, the "Environmental Dioxin and Heavy Metal Monitoring, Testing, Reporting, and Handling Guidelines" have been established. This initiative, from an environmental aspect, institutes an inter-ministerial mechanism that enables various ministries to collaboratively track and trace the distribution of environmental pollutants in the food chain. If any ambient medium is found and the pollution source investigation results are abnormally high, the environmental authority will promptly initiate an inter-ministerial project to trace the pollution source and track the flow of polluted agricultural, livestock, and aquatic products in order to effectively obtain relevant information.
Furthermore, the chemical cloud will serve not only to facilitate cross-checks on manufacturers with food safety concerns, but also to screen food manufacturers, selected substances, and suspected chemical raw material suppliers and businesses. The objective is to compile a list of suppliers/business entities suspected of handling specific chemical substances, and the results will be shared with relevant ministries for further cross-checks and review.
- Source:
- Ministry of Environment
- Updated:
- 2024-10-18
- Hit:
- 571