Marta Hugas, EFSA-European Food Safety Authority: “Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is the biggest challenge facing the food sector, including animal feed. The use of antibiotics in animals and human medicine is a very important challenge for public health. Every year, more than 30.000 people die in the EU because there are no antibiotics to counteract the infections.”

Interview by: Cemalettin KANAŞ

One of the prerequisites for safe food is safe feed free from any doubt. As stakeholders of the feed and food sector know, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) plays a significant role in the enactment process of food safety legislation in close contact with the EU and the European Commission. Due to the importance of the subject, for this issue, we made an interview with Marta Hugas, senior scientist at EFSA of which impact sometimes exceeds the borders of Europe. We talked with Marta Hugas on the role of EFSA in the context of feed and food safety, the potential of technology, antibiotic use and current issues such as climate change. Reminding that the use of growth promoters has been banned many years ago in the EU, Hugas notes that it is still allowed in other regions and this compromises the success of other measures to fight AMR. The senior expert says the use of antibiotics in animals and human medicine is a very important challenge for public health. Since AMR is a global problem, it requires a global solution, she underlines. Hugas also mentioned the positive role of digitalization and technology in the fight against hunger and food safety: “A profound change of the global food and agriculture system is needed if we are to nourish the 815 million people who are hungry today and the additional 2 billion people expected to be undernourished by 2050.” The experienced expert highlighted that digitalization and technology can provide many advantages in this sense and that we should not be scared of exploiting the opportunities they offer.

Feed safety is for sure a crucial topic for animals, human being and the environment. Could you explain the works of EFSA in terms of feed safety for our readers? EFSA assesses risks to human and animal health throughout the animal feed chain. In the area of feed safety, EFSA’s scientific advice supports the European Commission in the authorisation process for feed additives, by assessing the efficacy and the safety of a substance in terms of animal and human health. We also take into consideration the possible effects on the environment, including residues in soil, ground water and surface water. Furthermore, EFSA reports on the contamination of animal feed by substances regulated by EU legislation and on issues such as cross-contamination of feed by coccidiostats. EFSA’s work also covers the use of GMOs in or as animal feed and issues related to the materials banned from animal feed under the EU regulations on BSE/TSE.

In your website you state that most of your work is undertaken in response to requests for scientific advice from the European Commission, the European Parliament and EU Member States. Can you please explain this? What kinds of advice do you give to these bodies? The current European food safety system, which was set up in 2002, established a clear separation between risk assessment and risk management. EFSA is responsible for the first part whilst the bodies you mention - i.e. the European Commission, the European Parliament and the EU Member States – are responsible for the latter. The legislators take our scientific advice and, along with other information, use it to inform their decisions.

Risk communication is the second pillar of EFSA’s work to improve the safety of food in Europe. It’s about bridging the gap between science and the consumer: scientists have very different ways of assessing risk and different perceptions of risk. As consumer we are often concerned about “What does this risk mean for me?”. With such a diversity it is not possible for EFSA to develop one single message to reach out to 500 million citizens in the EU. That’s why it is essential to share the responsibility of risk communication with legislators at EU and Member States level in order to pass on information about food safety in a simple and clear way understandable to their consumers.

Around 95% of the requests EFSA receives come from the European Commission, but we also receive mandates from the European Parliament - recently, for instance, to carry out an assessment on the welfare of farmed rabbits. EFSA can also receive mandates from Member States – e.g., five Nordic countries have asked us to assess tolerable upper intake level of dietary sugars. The advice, which should be ready in 2021, will support Member States establish recommendations for the consumption of added sugars and in planning food-based dietary guidelines.

What are the pros and cons of digitization about sustainable food chain? What opportunities can digitalization bring to the sector? The United Nations Sustainable Developments Goals make it very clear: “A profound change of the global food and agriculture system is needed if we are to nourish the 815 million people who are hungry today and the additional 2 billion people expected to be undernourished by 2050.” Digitalization and technology can bring many advantages in this regard and we should not be scared of exploiting the opportunities they offer. We need to stay relevant and keep pace with technological change in order to be able to contribute to meeting the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

We will need to use all the technology available when it comes to tackling climate change and to feed in a sustainable way a growing world population, estimated to reach 10 billion in 2050. For instance, in the area of food safety in which EFSA plays a leading role not just within the EU, I can stress the opportunities provided by the automatic extraction of information from scientific literature. Our work requires the collection and analysis of existing research and data and this technology constitutes a great way to speed up the evaluation process. By using algorithms, you can look into huge amounts of scientific data, perform automated systematic reviews and extract relevant results to then pass on to scientists for human scrutiny.

To carry out its scientific evaluations EFSA is also considering making use of artificial intelligence (AI). To this end we launched a project to establish an EU common roadmap proposal, taking stock of the state of play of AI at EU level, and working in close cooperation with Member States and relevant EU Agencies.

What challenges should we worry about most about feed safety? How do you cope with these challenges as EFSA? Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is the biggest challenge facing the food sector, including animal feed. The use of antibiotics in animals and human medicine is a very important challenge for public health. Every year, more than 30.000 people die in the EU because there are no antibiotics to counteract the infections.

AMR refers to the ability of microorganisms to withstand antimicrobial treatments. Animals, including food-producing animals, are considered to be sources of resistant bacteria, which may arrive from contaminated feed. EFSA assesses the risks of antimicrobial resistance and provides scientific advice on control options carried out by risk managers. Specifically on feed, our scientific experts evaluate the safety of animal feed additives, including the risks related to antibiotic resistance where micro-organisms are involved.

AMR is a global challenge and it requires a global solution. In June 2017 the European Commission adopted an EU One Health Action Plan to fight antimicrobial resistance and EFSA is actively contributing to its implementation. The plan aims at making the EU a best practice region, boosting research and innovation and, ultimately, shape the global agenda. On this last point there is still a lot to do; for instance, the use of growth promoters has been banned many years ago in the EU but it is still allowed in other regions and this compromises the success of other measures to fight AMR.

Are there globally recognized standards in food and feed safety? If so, to what extent can it be implemented? Can you tell us about the studies on this point? The setting of standards is a question of political negotiation at a global level.

What we have seen at the European level in the last two decades is that the strict distinction between risk assessment and risk management is a recipe for success in order to allow the best science to be produced to inform decisions.

We are aware that food risks know no borders and this is why we think it is fundamental to work closely with international bodies around the world, building partnership with the US, Japan, , Australia, China and the African Union just to name a few. At EFSA we strongly believe in cooperation as a tool to prevent and fight known or emerging risks, via the sharing of information and methodologies.

What would you like to say about the effects of climate change on food and feed safety? What measures should be taken in this regard? This is a very important question. Indeed climate change may affect not only food security but also food and feed safety. Climate change may adversely impact all areas of EFSA’s remit, posing challenges to future risk assessments.

Think for instance about the increase of temperatures and the consequent different distribution of rainfalls: warmer and wetter weather can lead to moulds which can affect food crops producing mycotoxins, harmful substances which are known for causing adverse health effects on humans and animals (e.g. gastrointestinal and kidney disorders, changes in immune response and in some cases even cancer).

Another example is the possible changing patterns of pesticide and fertilizer use triggered by the introduction and spread of new pests as well as reduced nutrients availability in the soil, affecting plant health and crop productivity. Changing weather patterns could also affect the use of veterinary drugs and additives (potentially contributing to antibiotic resistance) due to the spread of new pests and diseases.

We at EFSA can tackle these new challenges by developing methodologies for the identification of emerging risks to food and feed safety, contributing to preparedness, long-term strategies and to combat future risks. We do this through scientific cooperation and holistic approaches such as a coordinated landscape-based framework across all relevant areas of EFSA’s work (pesticides, feed additives, GMOs, plant health).

As far as I know, within the EU framework, only some specific types of insects are allowed to be used in pet food and aquaculture feed and the studies for poultry and livestock are still continuing. How will this evolve in the future? Where the boundary should be drawn in terms of feed and food safety? What do you think about the present situation and future of “insect-as-feed” concept? An increased reliance of insects as a source of food and feed could bring environmental, economic and food security benefits.

The use of insects in some areas of animal nutrition is already allowed in the EU. In light of the nutritional characteristics of the insects, such as the concentration of protein of high biological value, research is very active in testing the nutritional strategies to include such feed materials in the diets of food producing animals, like chicken. Regarding safety, EFSA published a risk profile related to the production and consumption of insects as food and feed in 2015. This study identified potential biological and chemical hazards as well as allergenicity and environmental hazards associated with the use of farmed insects as food and feed. In general terms, we found that when insects are fed with currently permitted feed materials, the potential hazards are similar to those associated with other sources of proteins.

To date, EFSA has not received any request to assess insects as a feed material or as additives. However, there is a lot of research on-going and we may be asked to provide our advice in the near future.

In the area of food, on the contrary, we received 12 insect-related Novel Food applications, which also cover those insect species which are already marketed in some EU Member states. Three of these applications have entered the risk assessment and we expect to publish the first opinions in the coming months.