ILRI research on animal health and food safety featured at 15th symposium of veterinary epidemiology and economics

Findings from animal health and food safety research by scientists from the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and partners were presented at the 15^th International Symposium of Veterinary Epidemiology and Economics (ISVEE 15) that was held 12-16 November 2018 in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

The opening session at ISVEE 15 (photo credit: ILRI/Sinh Dang).

ILRI hosted a special session on healthy food in informal markets – hazards, risks, trade-offs and synergies at the conference. Delia Grace, program leader of ILRI’s Animal and Human Health program and leader of the food safety flagship in the CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH) gave a keynote on food safety in low- and middle-income countries. She highlighted the need to develop capacity for well-governed, evidence- and risk-based food safety systems and to harness marketplace drivers of progress on food safety.

Delia Grace gives a key note on food safety in low and middle income countries at ILRI’s special session on healthy food in informal markets (photo credit: ILRI/Sinh Dang).

Fred Unger, a senior scientist at ILRI presented results from research on the safety of the pork value chain in Vietnam from recent work by the ‘Reducing disease risks and improving food safety in smallholder pig value chains in Vietnam’, or PigRISK and the ‘Market-based approaches to improving the safety of pork in Vietnam’, or SafePORK projects that are funded by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR).

The capacity development and policy impacts of research and training partnership for food safety in Vietnam and Cambodia were presented by Hung Nguyen, ILRI regional representative for Southeast Asia from work done in the Taskforce and Safe Food, Fair Food for Cambodia projects.

ILRI scientists Johanna Lindahl and Silvia Alonso also made presentations on:

• Aflatoxins in the dairy value chain- a challenge for the informal markets?
• Is my milk safe? Characterizing the quality and safety of the milk consumed in low-income households in Nairobi.

Additionally, more than 10 presentations and nearly a dozen posters by ILRI researchers were featured in other sessions at ISVEE 15.

Some 700 participants from 70 countries attended the conference.