Search Results for: food
10 results out of 5234 results found for 'food'.
PREHISTORIC CREATURES
BY MATTHEW BRACE
ONE of the world’s most inhospitable deserts is yielding scores of unknown species that have existed since the time of the dinosaurs.
They have been discovered in the Simpson Desert in central Australia, where summer temperatures reach 50C and where there is no rain for months, sometimes years.…
ENLARGEMENT THINK PIECE
BY KEITH NUTHALL
AS acts of international largesse go, the expansion of the European Union eastwards and southwards must rank as being one of the most generous in history. With research estimates claiming that the size of the EU budget will soar to accommodate the needs of the former communist republics, (plus Cyprus and Malta), we are talking Marshall Plan here; billions of Euro’s being transferred from national coffers in western Europe to the east, via Brussels.…
WTO AGRICULTURE ROUND
BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE OFTEN tortoise-like World Trade Organisation has set itself such tight deadlines to make serious progress in its ongoing agricultural round that it will have to work, in its terms, at break-neck speed.
Announcing the end of the second stage of the talks, where diplomats attempted to put details on the general liberalisation proposals made in stage one, the round’s special session of the agriculture committee gave itself until March 31 to agree firm principles on which to base bilateral horse-trading that should start months afterwards.…
BIOTECHNOLOGY
BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has launched a general action plan to promote biotechnology in the EU, which will especially focus on encouraging innovation in food production. Brussels fears that the EU could lose competitive advantage against its competitors if the opportunities offered by biotechnology are not seized.…
GLOBAL FORUM
BY KEITH NUTHALL
A GLOBAL Forum on Food Safety Regulators has been staged by the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation, (FAO), and the World Health Organisation, reflecting concern about recent food safety incidents, such as BSE, that the FAO claims have “caused serious turmoil in the world food markets and raised concern among consumers.”…
PHYTOSANITARY DEAL
BY KEITH NUTHALL
WHAT could be more straightforward or fairer, you might think, than the European Union’s veterinary and phytosanitary agreements with non-member countries?
The idea is that each party pledges that the food it exports to the other – be it derived from animals or plants – meets the requirements of its own food safety legislation and that this is then taken on trust by the receiving country.…
E COLI REPORT
BY KEITH NUTHALL
A SERIES of good practice recommendations on the prevention and detection of e-coli outbreaks has been issued by the European Commission, following a study of how six EU Member States deal with the pathogen.
Officials looked at the monitoring and control systems for red meat and milk in Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Portugal and Sweden and concluded that although all were alert to the risks of e-coli contamination, there was a wide range of different public and private control measures.…
EFSA LAUNCH
BY KEITH NUTHALL
WITH formal approval being secured for the launch of the European Food Safety Authority, the European Commission has promised to work swiftly so that the new body can be operational by the end of this year in its temporary home in Evere, north Brussels.…
USDA DATABASE
BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE UNITED States Department of Agriculture has made its National Nutrient Database adaptable to handheld Personal Digital Assistants; the database lists more than 6,000 food items. See http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp.…
EU RESEARCH
BY KEITH NUTHALL
EU research Commissioner Philippe Busquin has called for a European organisation spreading expertise on plant science to be created. He has also stressed that the oncoming 2003-2006 EU Sixth Framework Programme for research has earmarked Euro 685 million for food quality and safety studies.…