A review of antimicrobial resistance in imported foods.

Economic approaches to measuring the significance of food safety in international trade

Food products placed on the market must be safe to eat and have adequate quality. Food safety and quality are governed by the laws that each country brings to its market. In addition, legislation that has been adopted at regional and world level has a very important role in the international trade in food products. Nowadays, it is not possible to imagine international food trade without the existence of standards for particular product categories. Standards related to food products are a kind of limit for consumers regarding the quality, safety and authenticity of the food they eat. Efforts to harmonize different standards in order to facilitate and uniform the process of food production and trade are of great importance in the world. Enterprises producing food products in Republic of Srpska face many challenges today. Customers are increasingly demanding food quality and safety requirements, which are often more stringent than official legal standards for certain product categories. There has been a concentration of food trade on large trading systems whose bargaining power has increased sharply relative to food producers. In recent years, there have been a number of certification schemes for the certification of food products, which has had a major impact on not only the business of the companies in this field, but also on the evolution of the food quality and safety management system. In most cases, certification scheme owners are retail systems, traders associations, large multinationals with the support of certification bodies and traders associations. With this approach, export barriers to food products from Republic of Srpska are increasing significantly, as it is no longer necessary to meet only the legal requirements in the country where the product is sold, but also specific private standards prescribed by customers. All these efforts, on the other hand, are aimed at preventing incidental situations related to the possible poisoning of consumers with food products and the consequences that such cases can cause. In addition, there is a growing concern in the world for consumer health, which may be disturbed by the deliberate contamination of food, most often the result of ideologically motivated terrorist activities. Today, consumers want to be sure of what they eat and in terms of the origin, quality and all other attributes attributed to certain types of food. Modern standards related to integrated approaches to food quality and safety management also require measures to be taken to prevent food fraud that are motivated by the economic gain of fraudsters. In the legislation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, or the Republika Srpska, the application of the concept of establishing food security in the entire food supply chain, "from field to table", begins with the practical adoption of the Food Law of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In the meantime, the Food Law of the Republika Srpska was adopted, defining the obligations of food and feed business operators, as well as a system of official controls on food and feed. It is quite clear that the transition from one concept of food legislation, applicable in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY), to a modern proactive approach is still underway, and that the Republic of Srpska seeks to align its food legislation with the legislation that valid in the European Union (EU). Taking into account all the specific features of Bosnia and Herzegovina as a state and the competences defined by the Dayton Constitution at the entity level, the process of harmonization of legislation is more complex with EU legislation. In a number of cases, legislation is adopted at the state and entity levels for the same purpose, and sometimes the essential technical requirements in these regulations are different. This situation causes confusion, above all, for those who need to apply the requirements of the regulations in their business, which are the food business operators.

Over recent decades, international trade in meat products has increased enormously. Developing countries have had a leading role in the recent dynamics of the meat sector and have witnessed the strongest growth in consumption, production, and international trade. International trade in food products is governed by a growing array of public and private food standards. In recent decades, private voluntary standards developed in Western countries have become a key element of governance in meat food chains. The proliferation and influence of these private standards may represent both an opportunity and a threat for livestock producers and, in the coming years, might have increasingly important developmental implications for poorer countries, including those in sub-Saharan Africa. The purpose of this work is to shed light on the current practice in the application of these standards and to examine the present and future implications for developing countries, especially in Africa.

The global food marketing network is being constantly reshaped, providing opportunities and challenges for information and communication technology (ICT) to develop and improve international trade in food products. A gravity model of international trade is employed to see if ICT positively affects bilateral international trade in fruit and vegetables between member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) economies. We examine if the use of the Internet, mobile telephones, and fixed telephone lines determine the value of bilateral trade. Empirical results for the importance of ICT differ markedly between importing activities and exporting activities in the international value chain of fruit and vegetables in APEC countries. Changes in ICT levels in the import sector of the value chain have no effect on international trade in fruit and vegetables. However, in the export sector, growth in some ICT products has significant positive effects on trade in fruit and vegetables between APEC countries. Surprisingly, the strongest impact was discerned for the traditional form of ICT, fixed telephone lines, but this impact probably reflects the fact that fixed telephone lines are a proxy variable for the general level of infrastructure development. Of the two digital ICTs, mobile telephony and the Internet, only the Internet had a significant impact on trade levels. The further development of the Internet and its diffusion should make exporters in APEC countries more competitive in the fruit and vegetables value chain, and boost their trade values in these products.

The global food marketing network is being constantly reshaped, providing opportunities and challenges to the use of information and communication technology (ICT) to develop international trade in food products. ICT is likely to be especially important for food products such as fresh fruit and vegetables that are differentiated and sensitive to timeliness in supply, possess varied quality dimensions, and involve considerable supply accumulation and assortment. Digital ICT (Internet and mobile phones), in particular, is expected to facilitate international trade and encourage efficiency in the fruit and vegetables marketing system in two main ways. First, it reduces communication and search costs through cheaper and more effective media. Second, it improves market information and corrects information externalities along the supply chain, by promoting greater price transparency and enabling consumer preferences and tastes to be more precisely met. We employed a gravity model of international trade to test the hypothesis that ICT positively affects bilateral international trade in fruit and vegetables between member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) economies in the period from 1997 to 2006. Explanatory variables include the usage of the Internet, mobile telephones and fixed telephone lines, and a broad range of factors that might determine the value of bilateral trade such as income per capita, population, distance between trading partners and common language. A Poisson pseudo-maximum likelihood model was estimated in order to handle zero trade observations and reduce biases caused by heteroskedasticity. Empirical results were not quite as expected, with relatively minor impact of digital ICT. They suggest that using digital ICT has significant positive effects on trade in fruit and vegetables between APEC countries only for the Internet in exporting countries. A stronger positive impact was discerned for the traditional form of ICT, fixed telephone lines in exporting importing countries. Nevertheless, fostering the development of digital ICT infrastructure and its diffusion should make exporters in APEC countries more competitive in the fruit and vegetables supply chain through the Internet effect, and boost their trade values in these products.

The progressive processes of globalisation, integration and liberalisation of economies are the reason for which the competitiveness of economic entities is increasingly analysed in the context of their links with the international market. One of the ways to assess competitiveness is to analyse the comparative (relative) advantage in trade in products of a given economic sector. The objective of the article is to assess the comparative advantage in Polish foreign trade in food and non-food products, both in total Polish trade and with European Union Member States. The studies used the RTA relative trade advantage index. The data source was the WITS-Comtrade commercial database. The studies show that, in the years 2004-2017, there was a rapid development of Polish foreign trade in food products, in particular with the EU, resulting in a high trade surplus. Trade in non-food products grew more slowly, and the trade balance was negative. It is shown that Poland had a comparative advantage and was competitive on the world market (also on the EU market) in trade in these products, but did not have such an advantage in total trade in non-food products. The results obtained indicate international competitiveness of the Polish food sector and its large importance for national trade and payment balance.

To the Editor: Salmonella spp. resistant to multiple antimicrobial agents have emerged worldwide in recent years, but clinical relevance varies with the agent to which resistance evolves. Fluoroquinolones are often the drug of choice to treat gastrointestinal infections in humans, and resistance to this class of antimicrobial agents is associated with increased illness and death (1). Resistance to fluoroquinolones has emerged worldwide during the last decade. Salmonella isolates resistant to oxyiminocephalosporins because they produce extended-spectrum β-lactamases (ESBLs) have emerged worldwide since 1992. This emergence has caused concern since cephalosporins are drugs of choice to treat salmonellosis in children, to whom fluoroquinolones must not be administered because of toxicity issues. In Denmark, the first ESBL-producing isolate of animal origin from a Salmonella enterica serovar Heidelberg isolated from a boar imported from Canada in 2003 was reported (2), but such isolates have not previously been reported in food products. On October 15, 2003, the Danish Institute for Veterinary Research, the national reference laboratory, received 3 Salmonella isolates found in quails imported from France. Salmonella isolates found at any importer's laboratory in Denmark are submitted to the reference laboratory for further analyses. The quails were in the importer's storage room at the time of sampling; sampling was performed routinely by the importer's own laboratory. At the reference laboratory, the isolates were serotyped as S. enterica serovar Virchow and found resistant to ampicillin, ceftiofur, cephalothin, nalidixic acid, and tetracycline and with reduced susceptibility to ciprofloxacin (MICs >0.125 μg/mL) (3). Polymerase chain reaction detection and sequencing (4) showed that the β-lactam resistance was mediated by blaCTX-M-9. Pulsed-field gel electrophoresis was performed by using XbaI and BlnI as restriction enzymes according to the PulseNet protocol (5), and all 3 isolates had the same profile. On October 23, the importer was informed of the laboratory's findings and the increased risk associated with salmonella isolates simultaneously resistant to quinolones and cephalosporins. Based on this information, the importer withdrew the product from the supermarkets on October 24. Recently, S. enterica Virchow with blaCTX-M-9 has also been reported in poultry, poultry products, and humans in France (6), as well as humans in Spain (7) and the United Kingdom (8). The isolates from France were also resistant to nalidixic acid; the isolates we have obtained from fresh quails imported from France are possibly related to these isolates. The global food-products trade is expected to increase in the future. Thus, attempts to improve food safety must emphasize detection of antimicrobial drug–resistant bacteria in imported food products. Furthermore, international agreements that limit contamination with drug-resistant bacteria and resistance genes at the primary production site are necessary to ensure consumer safety (9). International agreements must be based on antimicrobial-resistance data and early reports of emerging problems. Recently, the World Health Organization (WHO) launched the Global Salm Surv program (10) to isolate and identify antimicrobial resistance to Salmonella globally. Many national and international rules, as well as marketing and consumer factors, regulate the international trade of food products and live animals. Large international corporations may also affect international trade. For example, McDonald's Corporation has issued a global policy for antimicrobial drug use in food animals that specifies requirements for their food product suppliers. Local groceries or supermarkets may also impose their own standards nationally. We are aware of only 1 product withdrawal related to antimicrobial resistance, the quail imported from France. No international standards exist for managing food safety problems related to antimicrobial resistance. However, in 2003 the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, WHO, and the World Organisation for Animal Health jointly hosted a workshop with a panel of experts to scientifically assess resistance risks related to nonhuman use of antimicrobial drugs (9). The panel's purpose was also to provide recommendations to the Codex Alimentarius Commission for future risk management of antimicrobial drug resistance (9). Imposing restrictions on products with combinations of resistance, such as simultaneous resistance to quinolones and cephalosporins in Salmonella, as reported in this study, would be a good first step towards managing antimicrobial drug–resistance risks.

In an increasingly interconnected world, ensuring the safety of the global food supply has emerged as a paramount concern. With foodborne illnesses affecting millions annually and international trade in food products reaching unprecedented levels, the need for robust food safety standards has never been more pressing. This abstract explores the vital role of international collaboration and policy harmonization in enhancing global food safety standards, with a focus on the mechanisms, challenges, and potential solutions involved. At the heart of global food safety efforts lie collaborative endeavors among nations facilitated by international organizations such as the World Health Organization (WHO), the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), and the Codex Alimentarius Commission. These entities serve as platforms for harmonizing food safety regulations by developing science-based standards, guidelines, and codes of practice. Through regular consultations, expert committees, and consensus-building processes, these organizations foster agreement on key principles and practices governing food safety across diverse national contexts. However, achieving harmonization in food safety policies poses significant challenges. Divergent regulatory frameworks, varying levels of institutional capacity, and disparities in resources among countries can impede efforts to establish uniform standards. Moreover, geopolitical tensions and trade disputes may hinder cooperation, leading to fragmentation in global food safety governance. Addressing these challenges requires concerted efforts to build trust, enhance communication, and promote transparency among stakeholders. Technological innovations offer promising avenues for overcoming barriers to international collaboration and policy harmonization in food safety. Blockchain technology, for instance, enables transparent and tamper-proof recording of food supply chain data, enhancing traceability and accountability. Internet of Things (IoT) devices provide real-time monitoring of food storage and transportation conditions, helping to prevent contamination and spoilage. Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithms analyze vast datasets to identify emerging food safety risks and inform regulatory decision-making. By leveraging these technologies, countries can strengthen their capacity to implement harmonized food safety standards and improve compliance with international regulations. Furthermore, public-private partnerships play a crucial role in advancing global food safety initiatives. Collaboration between governments, industry stakeholders, academia, and civil society organizations facilitates knowledge sharing, capacity building, and resource mobilization. By pooling expertise and resources, these partnerships enable more effective surveillance, response, and mitigation of food safety risks on a global scale. Moreover, they promote information exchange and best practice dissemination, fostering a culture of continuous improvement in food safety management. Policy harmonization efforts must also embrace risk-based approaches to prioritize interventions and allocate resources effectively. By identifying and assessing food safety hazards based on their likelihood and severity, countries can tailor their regulatory measures to address the most significant risks. Moreover, regular monitoring, evaluation, and review of food safety policies are essential to ensure their relevance, effectiveness, and adaptability in the face of evolving threats and challenges. Enhancing global food safety standards requires sustained international collaboration and policy harmonization. By fostering consensus, leveraging technology, and fostering partnerships, the international community can strengthen the resilience of the global food system, protect public health, and promote equitable access to safe and nutritious food for all.

In the global context, the domestic food supply in Latin America and Caribbean countries ranges from medium to high levels. This is largely attributable to increases in agricultural productivity and the expansion of international trade in food products in recent decades. Nevertheless, several countries –mainly in Central America and the Caribbean– lag far behind in terms of food availability, and this situation is reflected in high rates of undernourishment and malnutrition. This has much to do with the low levels of technology use and agricultural productivity associated with economies where this sector accounts for a large portion of domestic output, their modest foreign–exchange earnings from exports and the need to import large volumes of food. The variability of world prices for basic grains and coffee, natural disasters and weather conditions have all had a significant impact both on the profitability of agricultural exports and on import capacity. This, in turn, heightened the vulnerability of food security systems in the countries of the region and, in some cases, led to an increase in undernourishment.

The article is dedicated to the history of the creation of the Codex Alimentarius and its crucial role in regulating food safety standards at the international level. This document is a unique compilation of standards, guidelines, and recommendations aimed at protecting consumer health and ensuring fair practices in the trade of food products. The Codex Alimentarius holds special significance as it represents the culmination of a long process of developing food safety norms that have evolved over millennia. It is known that the first written food safety rules appeared in the national legislations of individual countries. Historical sources indicate that some of these norms were introduced as early as 2000 BCE. Their primary purpose was to guarantee the safety of food consumption, prevent consumer fraud, and ensure fair trading conditions. However, with the growth of international trade, the need arose to establish universally accepted standards that could provide a unified approach to food safety on a global scale. This necessity became the foundation for the creation of the Codex Alimentarius, which was officially adopted in 1963. The Codex Alimentarius is the result of the collaborative efforts of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO). The Codex Alimentarius Commission, functioning as an auxiliary body for the implementation of international standards, brings together hundreds of member countries, underscoring its global scale and importance. Today, the Codex includes an extensive array of norms, standards, and recommendations that cover a wide range of issues – from product quality requirements to the regulation of technological processes in food production. The importance of the Codex Alimentarius also lies in its impact on international trade in food products. Unified standards help eliminate trade barriers, ensure equal conditions for all market participants, and enhance consumer trust in products supplied from different parts of the world. Due to its universality and comprehensive regulatory coverage, the Codex remains a key document in the system of international cooperation in the field of food safety.

The purpose of this paper is thus to analyze how the interconnection between international food safety standards and the rules of free trade is playing out and what the end-result of such interplay is for the potentially conflicting objectives of free trade and food safety. In performing this analysis, the paper opposes the merits of two types of food safety standards, public and private standards, in order to determine which of them is more likely to constitute an appropriate regulatory model for transnational food safety in the context of the WTO-led liberalization of the international trade in food products. The paper opposes two concrete examples of such standards, namely the public Codex Alimentarius standards, which have been assigned a formal role by the WTO; and the private GLOBALG.A.P. Standard for agricultural products, which is developed in isolation from international trade rules.

Foodborne Viruses: Their Importance and Need for Research

The article examines modern trends in the development of international trade relations in the agricultural sector of the Ukrainian economy as one of the determining factors in the context of European integration. Peculiarities of Ukraine's participation in agricultural export-import operations are analyzed. It was emphasized that Ukraine is currently at the initial stage of entering the world agricultural markets, domestic food exports are dominated by raw materials or products with little added value, and the export of ready-made food products has not acquired significant volumes. It was determined that due to the agrarian sector of the economy, the food supply of the state, the national market and export potential are formed. It was noted that Ukraine's adherence to the principles and rules of conduct in international trade and other economic relations determined by international unions and organizations contributes to the development of foreign economic trade activities. There has been indicated the need to implement a number of measures to adapt the market environment, build regulatory mechanisms on harmonized institutional bases, for mutually beneficial integration of Ukraine and the EU. It has been studied that with the beginning of the Free Trade Zone with the European Union functioning, Ukraine ensures the approximation of the domestic agricultural sector to the market conditions of management, carries out adaptation to the Common Agrarian Policy of the EU. It has been proven that the dynamics of foreign trade in agricultural products of Ukraine with EU countries indicates a rapid and mutually beneficial strengthening of economic ties, reciprocal attractiveness of trade in food products. Studies show that the agricultural sector of Ukraine has demonstrated positive dynamics in the development of international trade in agricultural and food products in recent years. Emphasis is placed on creating more favorable conditions for the activation of foreign economic trade relations, which should become a strategic priority of the state.

Most sophisticated products require testing for compliance with specifications and safety regulations before release into many markets, and trade in many simpler commodities and products also requires supporting technical information. Test documentation has become an essential element in this trade. Food intended for human consumption certainly falls into the "sophisticated products" category. Lack of acceptance of laboratory test data across national borders may be a significant barrier to trade. In order to avoid such barriers and unnecessary duplication of laboratory tests, mutual recognition of laboratory results should be regarded as an important means of facilitating international trade in food products. It is difficult to envisage recognition of test data across borders without internationally agreed criteria for assessing the competence of testing. These criteria should, as a minimum, require that a laboratory involved in the analysis of foods operates a suitable quality system. The laboratory must create a quality system appropriate to the type, range and volume of work performed. It is necessary for the elements of this system to be documented in a quality manual which is available for use by the laboratory personnel. The quality manual must be kept up-to-date by a person or persons having responsibility for quality assurance within the laboratory. This paper describes and discusses the elements of a quality system in a food laboratory, including suitable quality assurance measures, the use of validated analytical methods and participation in proficiency testing schemes.

Agriculture is the mainstay of the economies in most of ECOWAS countries. Ironically, however, persistent food shortage arising from constraints on agriculture is exposing many of them to threats of extreme hunger and starvation. Trade in food products has been identified as a very critical factor in safeguarding food security for the world's poor. This study therefore examined the extent and drivers of intra-regional trade in food products in ECOWAS and the two monetary zones (WAEMU and WAMZ) in the sub-region. Poisson Quasi Maximum Likelihood of Santos-Silva and Tenreyro was used to estimate the gravity model. While exporter income discourages intra-regional trade in food products, importer income promotes it. Landed area irrigated and the land available for cultivation promotes intra-regional trade in food products in ECOWAS. It is only in WAMZ that colonial ties and border enhance intra-regional trade in food products.