In the last six years, the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Rural Development, Fisheries and Food (SAGARPA) has invested more than one billion pesos to promote the application of Pollution Risk Reduction Systems (SRRC) in the production of fresh food.
The Director General of Agricultural Food, Aquaculture and Fisheries Safety of the National Service of Health and Food Safety (Senasica), Hugo Fragoso Sanchez, stated this during the Seventh International Congress of the National Association of Exporters of Berries (Aneberries), which he attended with the representation of the head of Sagarpa, Jose Calzada Rovirosa.
Fragoso Sanchez stated that between 2012 and 2016, Senasica had given SRRC certifications to 18,000 primary production and packaging of fresh vegetables units of different products, such as tomato, cucumber, chili, pepper, papaya, mango, broccoli, pumpkin, onion, lettuce, carrot, avocado, Aubergine, cauliflower, raspberry, strawberry, radish, basil and blueberry.
In 2017, 9,707 Production Units have received SRRC certification and by the Good Use and Management of Agrochemicals (BUMA) program, equivalent to 121,703.38 hectares, with 471 packages of avocado, tomato, mango, chile and pepper, cucumber and berries (strawberry, raspberry, blackberry and blueberry).
Vegetable exports
These actions have given an unprecedented boost to the export of fresh vegetables, a clear example of this has been the exponential growth in the production and marketing of Mexican strawberries abroad.
Fragoso Sanchez said that an innocuous food is free of contaminants that could endanger human and animal health, and that its quality refers to the conditions that the food must have and that are demanded by the consumer.
He stressed that, in order to preserve food safety, Senasica promoted the application of SRRCs in primary and packaging processes to reduce the likelihood of contamination of vegetables during their production, harvesting or packaging with biological substances or agents, chemical or physical hazards that could threaten consumer health.
In addition he said that the application of SRRCs has repercussions on the quality and safety of the production of food of agricultural, livestock, aquaculture and fishery origin, as well as on the protection of the national and global consumers, as Mexico exports its products to more than 160 countries around the world.
Source: elvigia.net