04/06/2013 Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
<p>Strasbourg, 04.06.2013 - “There can be no food security without food safety. Risk assessment is only the first step. Science by itself cannot ensure food safety; it has to be accompanied by effective policies and legislation which is backed up by rigorous enforcement”, Anne-Laure Gassin, Director at the European Food Safety Authority, stressed at a hearing on Food security, organised in Paris on 3 June by the PACE Social Affairs Committee.</p> <p>As many factors as poverty, increasing food prices, the rise in global population, climate change, decreased water security, food waste, pollution, soil degradation, speculation on food commodities, conflicts etc. influence food security, participants stressed. Fernand Boden (Luxembourg, EPP/CD) stressed that the development of a sustainable agriculture, the combating of climate change and the reduction and recycling of waste as well as the harmonisation of the use of the ‘precautionary principle’ in respect of food supplies in order to ensure sufficient protection of public health will be among the main topics of his report on food security.<br /> </p>