US, Mexico Sign Agreement on Food Safety

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By Michael R. Taylor, FDA Voice Jul 28, 2014

We know that food safety is more a journey than a destination, but there are times when we can point to a major milestone along the road. Today, we reached such a milestone in our long-standing relationship with Mexico by signing a statement of intent to establish a new produce safety partnership.

Working with Mexico on food safety is a top priority. Mexico is one of the United States’ top trading partners, and much of the produce we eat is grown there, including produce that otherwise would be hard to find during the winter. And food safety modernization efforts are underway in both countries, providing an excellent opportunity for progress. In the U.S., we are implementing the Food Safety Modernization Act, and produce safety is a big part of that effort, while Mexico is implementing an amendment to its food safety laws that mandates standards for fresh produce, inspections, and surveillance and verification programs.

We have been working with the two food safety agencies in Mexico—SENASICA, the National Service for Agro-Alimentary Public Health, Safety and Quality, and COFEPRIS, the Federal Commission for the Protection from Sanitary Risks—for some time, and it has been a very rewarding relationship. Last fall, I had the pleasure of traveling to Mexico City to meet with Dr. Enrique Sanchez Cruz, director general of SENASICA, and Mikel Arriola, federal commissioner of COFEPRIS, who were both present for today’s signing ceremony. And in March of this year, I traveled to Tubac, Arizona, to meet with Mexican government officials and producers of fresh fruits and vegetables from both sides of the border to discuss how all of us—in both the public and private sectors—can do our part to meet high consumer expectations for food safety.

The statement of intent is just a two-page document, but it represents a strategy that is far-reaching and designed to achieve high rates of compliance with produce standards in each country. In the months and years to come, we will be working with Mexico to identify practices to prevent contamination during the growing, harvesting, packing, holding and transportation of fresh fruits and vegetables and verification measures to ensure these preventive practices are working. We will exchange information to better understand each other’s produce safety systems—and in fact, this sharing is already underway. We intend to develop culturally appropriate education and outreach materials to support industry compliance with produce safety standards, and we will work on enhancing our collaboration on laboratory activities and on outbreak response and traceback activities. It’s an ambitious agenda, and that is the value of an inclusive partnership. We are engaging industry, commerce, agriculture, academia and consumers because everyone has a role in ensuring the safety of the food supply.

It is gratifying to see the progress we have made along the way—and even more gratifying to know that with the new produce safety partnership in place, fruits and vegetables will be safer for consumers on both sides of the border.