Search Results for: food

BY KEITH NUTHALL
WITH negotiators failing this Monday to agree liberalisation targets for the World Trade Organisation’s three years old agricultural talks – missing a March 31 deadline – member governments are facing a stiff challenge.

They have until the WTO’s next ministerial summit at Cancun, Mexico, in September, to strike a deal or face potential chaos at this meeting.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
The European Parliament’s environment committee has voted to recommend the continued withholding of some 2.18 million euros (about pounds 1.4 million) from the budget of the new European Food Safety Agency in spite of a complaint by the EFSA executive director that the agency’s work is being severely restricted by lack of funds.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A US$40 million trust fund has been launched by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation and the World Health Organisation to help developing countries frame and implement Codex Alimentarius international food trade standards. The ‘Project and Fund for Enhanced Participation in Codex’ should run for 12 years.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
MOVES by European health Commissioner David Byrne to lift the EU’s five year de-facto moratorium on GM food have been blocked by Germany, France, Greece, Belgium, Luxembourg and Austria. He said new authorisations should begin, because the EU Council of Ministers has approved labelling and traceability rules.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Bank for Reconstruction and Development is planning to lend Euro 12.5 million to Serbia & Montenegro fruit juice company fresh&Co. The loan will help the company strengthen its brands and its distribution networks. A bank memorandum said that the loan would enable the company to “provide a good example to other local food companies and retailers of good practice in distribution,” adding it would “also contribute to continued improvement of quality and availability of fruit juices in the market.”…

BY PHILIP FINE

A TINY wire antenna and a computer chip the size of a piece of glitter will be imbedded into most retail product materials in the next few years, if all goes as

planned by those currently involved in developing a revolutionary tracking system.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
TOUGH restrictions may be imposed on the use of nitrates as a preservative in food, even where such regulations are challenged by the European Commission as breaking EU freedom of trade legislation, the European Court of Justice has ruled.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A MOVE by European Union (EU) health and consumer affairs Commissioner David Byrne to kick-start preparations to lift the five year de-facto moratorium on genetically modified organism imports into the EU has been blocked by Germany, France, Greece, Belgium, Luxembourg and Austria.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A EUROPEAN Union-funded Euro 2.2 million database is being developed in Macedonia to identify and track beef, pork, veal, lamb and goat livestock, monitoring their health status and preventing sick beasts being exported into the European Union (EU).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union’s Scientific Steering Committee has approved two new rapid BSE post-mortem tests that will widen the choice of checks available to environmental health authorities seeking to control the disease. The European Commission said that they were “comparable to already approved tests…(and)… should help to create more competition in the field.”…