Food and Environmental Protection Newsletter, Vol. 16, No. 2, July 2013

The Food and Environmental Protection Subprogramme continues to strengthen its joint efforts with the FAO and IAEA to protect human health and improve food safety by providing research, technical support and training, including technical support leading to the development and application of international standards that facilitate agricultural trade. These activities are primarily related to the implementation of traceability systems and analytical techniques to control food contaminants, the application of ionizing radiation to control food bacteria and harmful insect pests, and the preparedness and management of nuclear and radiological emergencies affecting food and agriculture. It is very rewarding to be able to report that the Subprogramme is planning to hold an International Symposium on 'Food Safety and Quality: Applications of Nuclear and Related Techniques' in Vienna, Austria from 10-14 November 2014. The Forthcoming Events section provides more information on our plans for the Symposium, which will encompass food irradiation techniques to treat food directly as well as nuclear and related technologies for tracing food products in order to verify their provenance, or to detect and control contaminants and provide information for the continuous improvement of production systems. In food traceability and authenticity work, the Food and Environmental Protection Laboratory is using its expertise in measuring trace quantities of chemicals in foods to develop a 'metabolomics' approach for assessing authenticity. Chromatographic techniques are being used in conjunction with mass spectroscopy as a means of detecting and identifying characteristic markers for pure orange juice as part of laboratory research activities under an international project to implement nuclear techniques to improve food traceability. Research is focusing on orange juice diluted with other, less expensive, fruit juices. The Food and Environmental Protection Laboratory is also applying stable isotope techniques as an advanced tool to probe and verify the origin and authenticity of foodstuffs. Analytical protocols for stable isotope techniques are being developed and refined with particular emphasis on practical issues, such as the adulteration of honey. Important technical work in support of these stable isotope approaches also includes ensuring that appropriate standard reference materials are available for analytical laboratories worldwide. The laboratory is working with other IAEA laboratories and collaborating institutes to develop certified reference materials for future use in food traceability and authenticity. Research has identified several candidate materials and work is continuing to verify that they meet the necessary stringent criteria. In the area of food contamination, our extra-budgetary funding, obtained under the US Peaceful Uses Initiative (PUI), is helping to facilitate our train-the-trainer activities related to the establishment of food control systems that lead to enhanced food safety and quality. An example is the workshop hosted at the Food and Environmental Protection Laboratory in Seibersdorf, Austria, from 25 February-8 March, which involved analysts from 15 different member states. A comprehensive set of lectures and practical laboratory sessions were used to present and discuss a range of nuclear related technologies for the integrated control of contaminants in food, with special emphasis on pesticides. A full report on this can be found in the Food and Environmental Protection Laboratory section of this newsletter. The Past Events section of the Newsletter also provides further reports on workshops and training initiatives related to capacity building projects. These are funded through the IAEA Technical Co-operation programme and are enabling the Food and Environmental Protection Subprogramme to address requests for support from many different Member States. An example of activities in this area includes a recent workshop in Faisalabad, Pakistan, that focused on chemical residue monitoring as part of a national project on strengthening capabilities to monitor and control veterinary drug residues in food. As indicated in the Past Events section, a Regional Asian Technical Cooperation Project Workshop on Best Practice for Food Safety and Quality and Sanitary Applications of Food Irradiation was convened in Shanghai, China from 6-10 May 2013. The initial part of the meeting was held jointly with a national meeting on food irradiation at the Shanghai Academy of Agricultural Sciences and was attended by more than eighty participants from 19 different countries. Among other outputs, the workshop reviewed and finalized a 'Best Practice Manual' of food irradiation for the purposes of ensuring food quality and destroying organisms that could cause food illness. Examples of educational and training materials were provided by participants and a scope and description of a training module was developed in preparation for the next phase of Project RAS5057