Search Results for: food

BY KEITH NUTHALL
FOOD safety and quality need to be improved in all European countries because of the increase in food-borne diseases in the past decade, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the World Health Organisation (WHO) have said.…

BY MARK ROWE
A VIETNAMESE food processor has invented an odourless variety of fish sauce in attempt to crack the American market where the smell of fermented fish is disliked. The Hanh Phuc Food Processing Company in Ho Chi Minh City has already sold 100,000 bottles of odourless sauce worth US$50,000 to the United States.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission is to order tests on all imports of shrimps from Vietnam, Thailand and Myanmar, (Burma), to ensure antibiotic residues do not exceed EU health limits, following concerns raised by spot-checks on cargoes from these countries.

Results showed unsatisfactory contamination of shrimps from Vietnam and Thailand by Nitrofuran, veterinary drugs banned for food producing fish and animals in the EU on health grounds, including a possible increased cancer risks through long-term consumption.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE OFTEN tortoise-like World Trade Organisation has set itself such tight deadlines to make serious progress in its ongoing agricultural round that it will have to work, in its terms, at break-neck speed.

Announcing the end of the second stage of the talks, where diplomats attempted to put details on the general liberalisation proposals made in stage one, the round’s special session of the agriculture committee gave itself until March 31 to agree firm principles on which to base bilateral horse-trading that should start months afterwards.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
AS acts of international largesse go, the expansion of the European Union eastwards and southwards must rank as being one of the most generous in history. With research estimates claiming that the size of the EU budget will soar to accommodate the needs of the former communist republics, (plus Cyprus and Malta), we are talking Marshall Plan here; billions of Euro’s being transferred from national coffers in western Europe to the east, via Brussels.…

BY MATTHEW BRACE
ONE of the world’s most inhospitable deserts is yielding scores of unknown species that have existed since the time of the dinosaurs.

They have been discovered in the Simpson Desert in central Australia, where summer temperatures reach 50C and where there is no rain for months, sometimes years.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has launched a general action plan to promote biotechnology in the EU, which will especially focus on encouraging innovation in food production. Brussels fears that the EU could lose competitive advantage against its competitors if the opportunities offered by biotechnology are not seized.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE Indian cabinet is discussing a new national policy for food processing, which would pave the way for a Processed Food Development Authority. New Delhi is considering the rationalisation of Indian food legislation, currently divided into a plethora of laws, including those relating to the environment, marketing, grading and control.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
CHINA has attacked a ban by the EU on certain Chinese food imports on health grounds as ‘unacceptable’ and warned it could seriously affect bilateral trade. The European Commission voted to ban honey, poultry and rabbit meat, plus shrimps and prawns, following the discovery of “serious deficiencies” in China’s medical residue control system and “problems related to the use of banned substances in the veterinary field.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
FUTURE phytosanitary agreements between the EU and third countries should focus on “a limited number of products of undoubted importance to the parties,” said the European Commission following the emergence of a number of “practical problems” in existing deals.…