by Stanley Ove Jr – EM TV, Port Moresby
The recent 13th Codex Coordinators Meeting for North America and the South West Pacific region, held in Kokopo last month, urged Papua New Guinea and its Pacific counterparts to produce high-quality standards of food products for the world market.
While the agriculture sector in PNG has seen some improvements in recent years, Secretary for the Department of Agriculture and Livestock, Dr Vele Ila’ava said the challenge now is to modernise the agriculture sector to meet international standards.
Training is one step towards meeting the Codex standards, as well as modernising PNG’s agriculture sector.
Dr Ila’ava said despite the many challenges in the country in improving the quality of agriculture and food exports, training will increase capacity for important disciplines of laboratory analysis and policy formulation in food health and trade.
Dr Jens Anderson from Denmark University of Technology will facilitate the training and said the long-term aim of the program is to make PNG meet international food safety standards.
The training was launched today and will end on the 24th of October. Over 15 participants will take part in the training.
