OIE • 12, rue de Prony • 75017 Paris • France Tel.: 33 (0)1 44 15 18 88 • Fax: 33 (0)1 42 67 09 87 • www.oie.int • oie@oie.int 79 SG/9 Original: French CONTRIBUTION OF VETERINARY ACTIVITIES TO GLOBAL FOOD SECURITY FOR FOOD DERIVED FROM TERRESTRIAL AND AQUATIC ANIMALS Pascal Bonnet 1 , Renaud Lancelot 2 , Henri Seegers 3,4 , Dominique Martinez 2 1 CIRAD, UMR Dynamique des systèmes d'élevage en milieux méditerranéens et tropicaux, Campus International de Baillarguet, 34398 Montpellier, France 2 CIRAD, UMR Contrôle des maladies animales exotiques et émergentes, Campus International de Baillarguet, 34398 Montpellier, France 3 INRA, UMR1300 Bio-Agression Épidémiologie et Analyse de Risque en santé animale, F-44300 Nantes, France 4 LUNAM Université, ONIRIS, UMR1300 Bio-Agression Épidémiologie et Analyse de Risque en santé animale, F-44300 Nantes, France Summary: Agriculture is today facing with the challenge of feeding the world’s population, forecast to reach 9 billion over the coming 40 years, while at the same time preserving the earth’s resources. The growth in demand for food products in a context of global change requires a major move away from purely productivist agricultural practices to ecological intensification methods. Food security is not, however, limited solely to the quantitative aspects of the food supply. Food security exists when there is reliable access to safe and nutritious food that meets dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life. Livestock and fish productions make a strong contribution as a source of energy, protein with a high nutritional value and micronutrients, as well as by contributing to the income of those engaged in the production, processing and marketing chains at national and international level, and ultimately to countries’ GDP. Any health problem or contamination that occurs in production systems and marketing chains will therefore have complex repercussions throughout the food chain “from farm to fork”. The veterinary sector is consequently one of the guarantors of the stability and programmed development of the world food system through the activities it deploys at each stage in the system: production at farm level and processing, distribution and marketing at national and international level. The replies to a questionnaire that the OIE 1 sent to the Veterinary Services of its 178 Member Countries indicate that all those which have replied have established an institutional, legislative and technical framework organising veterinary activities. However, the allocated budgets and resources reveal a wide disparity between industrialised countries and developing countries, with chronic underinvestment in the least wealthy countries, illustrated by the fact that in more than 60% of the countries public investment in the relevant fields amounts to less than USD 2 per capita per year. The two main categories of activities, focused on animal health management and food safety, are organised along classical lines with systems of surveillance and control, traceability and laboratory analyses involving both public and private sector partners. The levels of activity and operational effectiveness, which are directly dependent on the allocated resources, also reveal the disparity between rich and poor countries. The majority of Veterinary Services perceived their activities as having a high impact on food security, the perception being of a fairly homogeneous impact on the four components of food security, namely availability, access, utilisation and sustainability. Virtually all of the countries wished the OIE to further increase its involvement and support in the field of food security while stepping up its work on the influence of animal production on environmental change. 1 OIE : World Organisation for Animal Health