January 24, 2019

China Animal Health and Food Safety Innovation Alliance holds inaugural council meeting

On January 18, 2019, the inaugural council meeting of the China Animal Health and Food Safety Innovation Alliance (CAFA) was held in the north office district of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs in Beijing.

In 2018, the Central "No. 1 Document" called for the implementation of food safety strategy, system improvements of the supervision of and standards for agricultural product quality and food safety, and the strengthening of the development of traceability systems for agricultural inputs and agricultural products. Accordingly, the Party Central Committee and the State Council have planned to carry out collaborative innovation work on the theme of animal-derived food safety.

The meeting was chaired by Shen Jianzhong, academician at the Chinese Academy of Engineering and China Agricultural University. More than 130 representatives of CAFA attended the meeting.

CAFA is a professional alliance under the framework of the National Agricultural Science and Technology Innovation Alliance, and is the first industry alliance focussing on safety of animal-derived foods along the entire value chain from farm to table.

With the aim of providing consumers safe, quality and healthy animal-derived foods, closely revolving around major demands relating to animal health and the quality and safety of meat, egg, dairy and aquaculture food products, CAFA focuses on raising the levels of technological innovation and resource sharing in the livestock, veterinary and food sectors, to solve major technological and bottleneck issues hindering the progress of food safety along the entire industry value chain.

Specifically, CAFA involves synergistic collaboration amongst various disciplines and tech companies in these areas: raising further the level of scientific application of veterinary antimicrobials; strengthening scientific guidance of banned substances in feed; specifying veterinary practices; strengthening technical training for large-scale livestock and slaughtering companies; raising testing and certification capabilities for animal-derived foods; ensuring the effective supply of safe, animal-derived foods from supermarkets and processing and F&B companies; promoting scientific education about the safety of animal-derived foods; and correctly guiding consumers and the media.

Shen Jianzhong was voted as the first chairman of CAFA. Huang Xiangyang of China Agriculture Press was voted as secretary general, while Sun Zhongchao was voted as executive deputy secretary general.

The current members of CAFA include 32 livestock, slaughtering and processing companies; 23 veterinary drug, feed, and equipment companies; 15 supermarket, F&B chain, and e-commerce companies; 16 testing, certification and consulting companies; and 17 research units at the central government and provincial levels. There are 103 council members in total.

CAFA focusses on technological innovation in the following 10 areas: 1) demonstration and application of new farming technologies for antimicrobial reduction; 2) demonstration and application of new antimicrobial-replacement technologies for feed additives; 3) development and application of new diagnostic technologies for animal diseases; 4) development and application of new traceability, inspection and audit technologies for food safety; 5) development and application of smart farming technologies based on big data, IoT and cloud platforms; 6) development and application of new AI technologies for the diagnosis of livestock behaviour and disease; 7) development and application of new risk analysis and monitoring technologies for the safety of animal-derived foods; 8) demonstration and application of new cold chain and temperature control technologies for animal-derived foods; 9) demonstration and application of new packaging technologies for animal-derived foods; 10) development and application of new animal welfare technologies.