| dc.description.abstract | In the face of the parents' rising demand for using safe and high-quality agricultural products for school lunch, various policy efforts have been made to reflect such request. Consequently, a trend of increasing use of environment-friendly agricultural products for school lunch is detected nationwide. Nevertheless, every year repeated occurrence of disqualifying environment-friendly products used for school lunch is being reported, lowering the consumer confidence in environment-friendly agricultural products and the safety of school lunch service. The purpose of this study is to explore and propose better ways of controling safety of environment-friendly agricultural products for school lunch program in order to ensure safe food consumption by students and to improve consumer confidence in the safety of school lunch with the use of safe and high quality food materials.
In the study, Chapter 2 takes a look at the current status of environment-friendly agricultural product supply to schools and Chapter 3 deals with the current safety management status of environment-friendly agricultural products. In Chapter 4, school nutritionists were surveyed to learn the food safety management practices at schools, whereas Chapter 5 describes the perception of the parents surveyed on the safety control of eco-friendly agricultural products for school lunch. Chapter 6 summarizes the school food safety management practices in key countries. Lastly, Chapter 7 proposes eco-friendly agricultural product safety control measures as a way to improve school lunch service.
The environment-friendly agricultural products are supplied to schools mainly by i) private merchants, ii) the Cyber Trading Center run by the Korea Agro-Fisheries and Food Trade Corporation, and iii) the school lunch support centers, among which the role of the school lunch support centers are getting larger. The annual supply volume of environment-friendly agricultural products to schools is estimated to be 130,000-185,000 tons with the prospect of continued growth over years. However, with the low agricultural chemical certification program for eco-friendly agricultural products cancelled, the supply shortage of some food items such as fruits is expected, which need to be responded properly.
As the safety management of agricultural products at the stages of production, distribution and sale is the responsibility of the Ministry for Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (the "Ministry"), the National Agricultural Products Quality Management Service (NAPQMS), a subsidiary agency of the Ministry, is accountable for conducting safety investigation for certified agricultural products such as environment-friendly agricultural products. The NAPQMS also engages in the safety tests for school lunch food materials including environment-friendly agricultural products. In the private sector, the food material safety test is mainly performed by the school lunch support centers which either directly handle the test with their own test facilities or delegate all or part of such safety test to external service providers.
The survey of school nutritionists has demonstrated the wide use of environment-friendly agricultural products for school lunch service and the prevailing intention to expand the usage in the future. The nutritionists are found to believe that the level of safety control of eco-friendly agricultural products is similar to general agricultural products and gave relatively more positive evaluation to the school examination and food supply stages for effective safety management. Nevertheless, the consensus formed among many nutritionists surveyed was the need to test food materials safety at the school level.
From parents perspective, the need of using environment-friendly agricultural products for school lunch was agreed, but the expansion of the usage was understood as the possible cost driver. When questioned about the agricultural product safety management level for school lunch, parents surveyed thought the level of food safety control is relatively higher for environment-friendly agricultural products than for general agricultural products and the school examination and food supply stages are applied with better safety control than other stages. Environment-friendly agricultural products were believed to have the need for stronger safety control than general agricultural products. Among different stages, the safety and quality control and supervision was perceived to be most important for safety management. In addition, the need of residue agricultural chemical test at the school level was raised.
In case of Japan, the school lunch associations take a key role in food supply for school lunch service and they either perform internal or external food safety test at the local government level depending on testing capability to ensure safe food supply for school lunch. The school lunch associations perform the bacteria (food poisoning) test as a mandatory examination along with other checks such as residual agricultural chemicals, heavy metals, DNA and radioactive exposures which can be differently chosen depending on the conditions of each school lunch association. Sometimes they engage in hygiene inspection and guidance for processing factories, the leasing of test equipment to schools, and hygiene and safety training to the workforce related to school lunch service.
The environment-friendly agricultural product safety management for school lunch should be improved in the way that ensures food safety, enhances credibility in environment-friendly agricultural products used and establishes the stable supply framework for school. Aligned with the basic direction above, the suggested practical measures for better safety control include i) more focus on the safety inspection by the school lunch support centers; ii) improvement of safety control ability of private merchants; iii) tougher safety control at the production level; iv) the training and information sharing regarding environment-friendly agricultural products; v) the stable environment-friendly agricultural safety management system in place; vi) the food safety testing plan development in consideration of school lunch traits; and vii) the coordination and alignment among government agencies.
Researchers: Yun-Jae Hwang, Kye-Im Lee, Taeyi Kim.
Research period: 2012. 4. - 2012. 8.
E-mail address: yjhwang@krei.re.kr | - |
