Journal of Consumer Protection and Food Safety最新文献

Regulations on nutrition and health claims are useful to protect consumers from deceptive practices of unscrupulous food manufacturers. Consumer protection is best achieved when relevant regulations are available and enforced. So far, no study has analyzed the robustness of regulations on nutrition and health claims in Malawi. In the present study, Malawi’s regulation was compared with Codex Alimentarius as well as European, U.S American, and the Republic of South Africa’s (RSA) regulations on nutrition and health claims. The study revealed that Malawi does not have regulations or guidelines on health claims and therefore, any health claim can be made. Likewise, Malawi’s regulation on nutrition claims was found to be the least demanding and less elaborate. Out of 11 nutrition claims related requirements, the Malawi regulation satisfied only 3. The lack of comprehensive nutrition and health claims regulations in Malawi may give an opportunity to dishonest manufacturers to mislead and deceive consumers. False claims can also derail government’s efforts towards addressing some nutrient deficiencies through food fortification programs. Currently, it is difficult to effectively regulate nutrition and health claims in Malawi. Therefore, the findings are a wake-up call for Malawi and other countries that may be in a similar situation to take the necessary remedial actions.

Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) is used to reduce exposure when working with chemicals. For pesticides, exposure scenarios comprise mixing and loading (M&L) and application. The exposure prediction model recommended by European regulatory agencies for operator risk assessments—the Agricultural Operator Exposure Model (AOEM) – is based on 48 operator exposure studies involving over 500 professional operators from 10 European countries in typical working situations to assess exposure under realistic field conditions. We used the AOEM data to assess the efficiency of exposure reduction resulting from wearing chemical-resistant nitrile gloves and non-certified working coveralls during M&L (tank and backpack sprayer), applications using groundboom and airblast spraying, and outdoor and indoor (greenhouse) applications using handheld sprayers. All studies indicated consistent and high exposure reduction > 90% for gloves and non-certified coveralls across all investigated scenarios. Exceptions were almost exclusively observed when an operator incorrectly used the PPE. The mean exposure reduction from all operators, including those that used PPE incorrectly, was 95.0% for gloves and 96.4% for polyester/cotton working coveralls during M&L, and 91.1% for gloves and 94.9% for non-certified coveralls during all application scenarios. This analysis confirms the essential role of PPE and non-certified working coveralls in reducing operator exposure to pesticides. Outliers indicate that operators need to be properly trained and adhere to label instructions to apply pesticides according to good agricultural practices.

The aim of the first work package (WP 1) of SocialLab II was to establish a monitoring system for framework conditions that influence the development of social criticism and acceptance of livestock farming. Based on the results of SocialLab I (Christoph-Schulz et al., J Consum Prot Food Saf 13:145–236, 2018), the aim was to establish a long-term longitudinal study. The monitoring was carried out, set up and tested online with a total of 4 survey waves and representative samples of consumers. In addition, farmers and retailers were surveyed. This enabled the development and validation of a survey tool that will allow the German Ministry of Agriculture to conduct surveys at regular intervals on the following topics that are important in the societal debate on the further development of livestock farming.

This article presents a future workshop on agricultural livestock farming, which—as part of the SocialLab II project—developed and applied innovative methods including participating interest groups in the political transformation of livestock farming. This future workshop examines the desirable developments for agricultural livestock farming from the perspective of all interest groups. The interests in animal welfare, environmental and climate protection were taken into account, as well as the economic and practical requirements of the companies. Challenging for dialogs in the field of transforming animal husbandry are the sheer number of different demands from social groups. On the one hand, more and more interest groups are voicing new demands, for example in the area of climate protection. On the other hand, previously homogeneous interest groups, such as those from agriculture and from animal welfare, are becoming increasingly diversified in terms of goals, strategies and values. Animals are increasingly recognized as a group affected by politics with their own demands, although their political representation is still hardly regulated. This paper includes methodological features of the future workshop on agricultural livestock farming, the identified target images for agricultural livestock farming, effective approaches to stakeholder dialog and insights into the aspects of appreciation and communication in dialog between stakeholders. From a large number of positions and submissions, 3 future scenarios of livestock farming in Germany were identified: (i) higher standards, (ii) system change and reduction and (iii) alternatives to livestock farming. In future, policy measures and dialog formats in the field of livestock farming should disclose where they fit into this spectrum of objectives. Alliances and compromises between the visions of the future are possible in various combinations. Agreement on minimum legal requirements in animal welfare seems particularly urgent, as these form the starting point of the debate. In future, dialog formats should be more open about their contribution to the debate, whereby three functional areas of dialog formats can be distinguished.