SDPU Co-Hosts Regional Workshop on Food Safety and Security in Paraguay
On July 16 – 18, 2024, CRDF Global and Paraguay’s National Commission on Atomic Energy (CNEA) co-hosted a workshop on Food Safety and Security in Latin America in Asunción, Paraguay, under the Sustained Dialogue on Peaceful Uses (SDPU) initiative.
The workshop focused on the role of various applications of nuclear science and technology, such as sterilization of insects, food irradiation, mutagenesis, food authenticity through isotopic verification, and data exchange in support of UN Sustainable Development Goal 2 (Zero Hunger). The workshop featured international perspectives from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) regarding its new flagship initiative Atoms4Food and the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) in addition to national perspectives from participants from Paraguay, Argentina, the Bahamas, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Jamaica, Panama, Peru, Uruguay, and the United States.
Day One provided context on domestic and regional food safety and security challenges and included presentations on nuclear science and technologies’ role in improving food safety and protecting food production. The morning of Day Two focused on various partnership initiatives and case studies for upscaling and improving access to nuclear science and technology. The afternoon of Day Two featured three breakout groups to define the main barriers to expanding access to and awareness of peaceful uses. Participants identified 1) access to and maintenance of facilities, 2) public education and awareness, 3) regulations and standardization as the main challenge areas. Day Three featured further breakout group sessions on these three challenges to brainstorm new areas of collaborations and project concepts to maximize access to facilities, gain producer and consumer awareness and acceptance, and overcome under/over-regulation and standardization challenges.
Key takeaways from this workshop included a clear need for continued opportunities for regional coordination and collaboration across a variety of sectors on peaceful uses activities – an objective of the SDPU program. Additionally, participants showcased a clear demand for increased capacity in the areas of sterile insect technique and food irradiation facilities. Through our programming, participants were able to develop ideas for regional projects in each of the priority challenge areas. For example, some participants worked towards a mentor pairing between countries with an advanced regulatory framework in place and countries who need to establish a more robust framework. Other concepts included the development of communication strategy templates to support countries’ efficient messaging of benefits of nuclear applications to specific stakeholders such as decision/policy makers, producers, and consumers, to increase their awareness and acceptance. A report will be posted on the SDPU website (www.sustaineddialogue.com) that will detail the workshop’s discussions on challenges, project concepts, and recommended next steps.
CRDF Global sincerely appreciates the thoughtful contributions of the attending experts to the critical discussion on expanding access to and awareness of the benefits of peaceful uses of nuclear science and technology. Additionally, CRDF Global expresses immense gratitude to CNEA for their pivotal role in the planning and execution of this workshop.
