Serik Zhumangarin instructed to eliminate «blind spots» in food safety control procedures

To eliminate «blind spots» in food safety control procedures – this task was set by Deputy Prime Minister-Minister of Trade and Integration Serik Zhumangarin before the Ministries of Agriculture and Health on March 10, 2023 at a meeting in the Government.  

According to First Vice Minister of Trade and Integration Arman Shakkaliev, today the Veterinary Control Committee of the Ministry of Agriculture controls non-processed food products of animal origin, the Sanitary Control Committee of the Ministry of Health controls processed food products, that is, already packaged or heat–treated, and the State Inspection Committee in the agro–industrial complex of the Ministry of Agriculture controls vegetable. Due to the delineation of the powers of state agencies in the unified process of food safety control, "blind spots" are formed at the junctions of the functional areas. At the same time, in world practice, control over non-food and food groups of goods is carried out by separate departments. In the EAEU countries, the functions of agricultural supervision and sanitary and epidemiological control are separated. 

Vice Minister of Agriculture Rustem Kurmanov noted the need to strengthen the protection of the domestic market from imported livestock and crop products that have risks of introducing particularly dangerous animal diseases, pests and plant diseases. Also, in order to support domestic processing agricultural enterprises, it is necessary to strengthen preventive work in order to prevent the import and sale of imported counterfeits and food products without compliance with technical regulations and standards. To this end, the Ministry of Agriculture discusses the feasibility of combining and strengthening two Committees – the state Inspectorate in agriculture and veterinary control, so that control and supervisory functions in the fields of veterinary and phytosanitary are carried out by one department and are fully represented not only at the republican, but also at the regional and district levels.

Following the results of the meeting, Serik Zhumangarin instructed the Ministries of Agriculture and Health to work out the voiced proposals and return to a substantive discussion of this issue in two weeks.