DRAFT LAW ON VETERINARY SCIENCE UNDER DEVELOPMENT AT RA MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE
Noyan Tapan
Aug 10 2007
YEREVAN, AUGUST 10, NOYAN TAPAN. A draft law on veterinary science
is being developed at the RA Ministry of Agriculture. The head of
the ministry’s legal department Karine Grigorian stated this at the
August 10 round table "Problems of Food Safety and Main Directions
of Their Overcoming". In her words, providing information about the
existing legislation to consumers is one of the problems of the food
safety system.
The department head said that by the order of the agriculture minister,
instruction forms have been approved, according to which the production
and sale of foodstuffs in breach of normatives may be suspended by
decision of an inspector of the State Food Safety and Veterinary
Inspection (SFSVI), which has to be approved by the minister within
three days.
It was mentioned that it is premature to take immediate steps aimed at
suspending the sale as it would mean wide-spread closure of food sale
facilities. The results of check-ups conducted by SFSVI in April-June
2007 suggest it: violations were not revealed only at 6 out of 500
food trade facilities checked by the inspection.
Representatives of other state governance structures, NGOs,
international donor organizations, as well as companies engaged in
food production and sale participated in the round table. The speakers
noted that although considerable work on formation of the food safety
system has been implemented in the country in the past two years, there
is still much to be done in this respect. In particular, the by-laws
on use of the Law on Food Safety need to be amended, and self-control
safety systems must be introduced in production enterprises by 2013.