Story > ELFS Program to Kick off in August Published: 8/28/2009 12:00:00 AM

International Course Aims to Advance Food Safety Leadership in the Americas Three dozen industry, government, and academic professionals from across the Americas will gain leadership skills and knowledge needed to advance food safety in their own countries and to promote international collaboration and shared knowledge as participants in a two-year program beginning later this summer. The Executive Leadership in Food Safety (ELFS) course, a collaboration among GIFSL, the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA), and other partners, prepares individuals to serve as effective leaders in developing comprehensive food safety programs and policies across the Americas. It will provide professionals in the public sector, private sector, and academia with knowledge and leadership skills needed to lead food safety initiatives; opportunities to create joint initiatives; and a network of resources for future food safety initiatives. The program will kick off with a five-day session in Quito, Ecuador, August 24–28. The introduction will be followed by three other week-long modules over the course of two years. Participants will stay linked between sessions via the Internet and other communication technologies. Participants in the ELFS program will complete four modules: Globalization and public-private partnerships Food safety systems, public health, and the agrifood chain Laws, regulations, and ethics Multiple roles of agricultural health and food safety With the guidance of a mentor, each participant will also design and implement a project that combines food safety and leadership. As part of the steering committee for the second ELFS program, Cordero Peña is now working to extend that valuable experience to other members of the food safety sector in the Americas and the Caribbean. The ultimate goal, she says, is a safer, healthier food supply within a global context for people throughout North and South America. “One of the biggest problems that we have in the Americas is the lack of food safety policy because we don't have enough leaders to push the government.” Cordero Peña says. The ELFS courses, she says, will help shape leaders who can go back to their own countries and provide food safety leadership there. The first ELFS series was held in 2000–2002 by IICA with support from the U.S. government, industry, and the Pan American Health Organization. Nearly 30 people from 13 countries participated in the training. Achievements of participants include developing a manual to improve poultry production in the Caribbean; creating a food safety education program for children and their families in Chile; providing materials for training courses for fresh produce producers in Costa Rica; and writing and publishing a guide on food hygiene practices for indigenous peoples in Guatemala. “Communicating among countries, you can share different experiences and different situations, and you can use a specific experience to put together a plan or to prepare in your country to avoid this disease or this situation,” Cordero Peña says. “At the end of the process we expect these people will be dynamos who push food safety policy in the industry.”