Bangladesh has achieved remarkable success for improving its regulation and control of veterinary drugs in shrimp farming as well as for the development of a unique traceability system under public private partnership (PPP), said a government official.
“We got acclamation from the EU authorities for the development of a system to ensure food safety and security,” said Shamsul Kibria, joint secretary of the Ministry of Fisheries and Livestock, at a programme on Wednesday.
Thailand has also shown eagerness to pursue the Bangladeshi model for ensuring food safety, he added
Kibria, who attended a symposium in Belgium on November 24 to know the findings of a research on the presence of illegal antibiotic in shrimp, has shared the outcomes of the seminar at a
“Workshop on Measure to Avoid Contamination in Shrimp”.
Poverty Reduction by Increasing the Competitiveness of Enterprise (PRICE) project of USAID organised the workshop at Lakeshore Hotel in Dhaka.
Ghent University and Agri-Food & Biosciences Institute, Belfast, UK, conducted the research on the presence of illegal antibiotic residues in Bangladeshi giant freshwater prawns, on behalf of Europe-based Seafood Importers and Processors Alliance and the Bangladesh Shrimp and Fish Foundation.
The buyers of shrimp can now easily track down its origin by using the traceability system.
“We temporarily suspended exporting golda shrimp for six months in res-ponse to the EU’s rejection over 42 contai-ners of frozen prawn in 2009,” said Kibria.
During this period, the government in collaboration with the private sector had taken a couple of measures like the implementation of new legislation, improvement of laboratory analytical capacity and the development of a traceability system.
“We have already made the national action plan to create an environment for ensuring food safety in Bangladesh in a joint effort with the Bangladesh Fisheries Research Institute and the Department of Fisheries under the action plan,” said Kibria.
William J Collis, director (South Asia) of World Fish Centre, hailed the Bangladesh government for developing a role model for others in ensuring food safety.
