The new UN representative for Food and Agriculture in Portugal, Francisco Sarmento, considers the creation of a food safety council as a priority in the fight against obesity and to get farmers back into the fields.
The Portuguese Government has already indicated in informal talks with Sarmento that it will give priority to the idea, but would go no further than that at this stage.
"Portugal does not have food safety council and I think it’s important to have one. It does not necessarily have to be a completely new body, it can be built on what already exists," said Sarmento who took office in December.
“Such a council could be formed using the different initiatives that exist already at the Ministries of Health, Education and Agriculture. They can work together to solve the problems of food."
"We have a very broad scope to work in Portugal if we are to actually carry out the human right of adequate food in the country," he added.
"In Portugal, we do not have serious problems of malnutrition as in other countries, but that does not mean that we do not have problems in the food system that affect people's health," said Sarmento, a Portuguese national who has lived in countries including Brazil and Angola.
Sarmento says that the right to adequate food is a relatively recent thing and countries, in general, are still learning to implement it.
People these days have less difficulty in accessing adequate food for their health, either because they know more about nutrition, what’s available or they are better of but there is still a "rampant" epidemic of obesity, diabetes, hypertension, cancer and that "this was not a deliberate consumer choice,” according to Sarmento.
"I have noticed with the Portuguese authorities, in particular with the Ministry of Agriculture, a clear awareness of these challenges and a desire to address these problems and try to solve them, within the financial constraints that they have," added the expert.
Sarmento also pointed out that due to the recent financial crisis in Portugal, a number of groups were more vulnerable to poor nutrition and in some cases, of malnutrition.
"These groups exist among those with lower incomes, those that are more isolated and those who have less ability to organise and choose, as is the case of the elderly," he said.
In Portugal’s interior regions there is "a desertification from the human point of view" and "smaller farms are no longer competitive and agricultural activity in some regions is no longer significant."
"One of the solutions would be to have a local market based on public purchases by schools and the Armed Forces, for example. There are studies conducted in European countries that show that this represents 10% to 15% of the state food budget," he added.
"This type of action could keep these farmers in the fields and perhaps lead other people to return to agriculture," he said.
