FSIS Reports on Results of Codex Meeting on Food Inspections
The Food Safety and Inspection Service reports that the Codex Committee on Food Import and Export Inspection and Certification Systems (CCFICS) held its 19th Session in Cairns, Australia on October 17-21, 2011. Among other things, the CCFICS declined to begin new work on export certification attestations, which the U.S. thought was unnecessary, and further worked on a proposal favored by the U.S. to develop Principles and Guidelines for National Food Control Systems.
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(See ITT's Online Archives 11100621 for BP summary of the draft U.S. positions for this meeting.)
FSIS states that actions at the meeting included the following:
- The main document for the meeting was "Proposed Draft Principles and Guidelines for National Control Systems," and the Committee agreed to forward Sections 1-3, including 13 draft principles, for adoption at Step 5. The Committee discussed the content of Section 4 relating to design and implementation of the national control system, and made decisions on concepts to be included under the general headings of Policy Setting, System Design, Implementation, and Monitoring and System Review. This section remains at Step 2, and will be the subject of a physical working group meeting tentatively scheduled for the second quarter of 2012 in Grange, Ireland.
- The Committee declined to begin new work on export certificate attestations.
- The Committee generally supported a proposal from Costa Rica for work on a harmonized questionnaire for gathering information from exporting countries, but requested more information before approving new work. Costa Rica will lead an electronic working group to prepare a discussion paper and project document for the next CCFICS meeting.
- The Committee declined to approve at this time a new work proposal from the United States to develop performance metrics for countries to assess the capacity of national control systems. While generally supporting the concept, the Committee preferred to wait until the National Control Systems document was completed. The United States will develop a questionnaire for distribution to member countries to gather information on how countries currently assess systems, and will prepare a discussion paper and project document for the next CCFICS meeting. Agreed that the United States would prepare
- The Committee agreed that the United States would prepare a discussion paper for consideration at the next CCFICS meeting on managing food safety emergency situations in relation to international trade. The paper is to take into account two existing CCFICS texts, FAO/WHO guidance and mechanisms, and proposals for incorporation of animal feed references in the documents.
The U.S. Delegate will provide a more detailed report on this Session, which we will publish shortly on our companion page for Recent Delegate Reports: http://www.fsis.usda.gov/Codex_Alimentarius /recent_delegation_reports/index.asp.
The Codex Secretariat will publish the formal report of this Session at: www.codexalimentarius.org.
The next CCFICS meeting is tentatively scheduled for Feb. 18-22, 2013.