REUTERS
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in partnership with Ukraine's Agrarian Policy and Food Ministry has launched a Norway-funded project whose main goal is to create a national food safety system for fishery products in Ukraine, according to FAO's press service.
"FAO sees an extreme importance in introducing this project, particularly given the current outbreak of botulism in Ukraine due to ingestion of fish products. One of the most critical issues here is that there is no proper control over sanitary-technical and sanitary-hygienic conditions of production… FAO has strong experience worldwide in supporting such technical fields as sanitary and phytosanitary issues and we have already built a good basis for most of the problems that are to be settled within this project," the press service quotes coordinator of FAO's development activities in Ukraine Mikhail Malkov as saying.
It is noted that the implementation of the project will address legislature development, fishery production chains, and access to international markets for Ukraine fishery products.
Read alsoUkraine's agriculture ministry says Canada interested in Ukrainian organic foodsThe project will also include an awareness campaign for fishery laboratories, clarifying their responsibilities under new regulations, and training for fish inspectors on EU fish import regulations and certification requirements. Food inspectors will receive specific training on inspection of fishing vessels, landing sites, fish processing plants, and food safety and quality management, it said.
The FAO project will operate until April 2018, the press service added.
As UNIAN reported earlier, the State Fisheries Agency and the General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean (GFCM) at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) at the end of 2016 announced a survey related to fisheries and aquaculture in Ukraine, which was completed recently, according to FAO's press service.
Ukrainian fishing enterprises caught 79,500 tonnes of aquatic bioresources in Ukrainian reservoirs in 2016, which was 14% up from 2015, and is a record within the last 20 years, the State Fishery Agency said.