Food traceability and democratic accountability

Tony just sent me a slightly weird press release from an entity that calls itself the European Association for Sure & Secure Identification, or IDtrack for short. Things that bother us both:

1. It calls itself European, which tends to lead one to assume some European component. Not so: the advisory board is completely Spanish (with what looks like to me a strong Catalan contingent) and the organisation is based in Barcelona.
2. It says that is the Spanish representative of EU project FoodTrace, while the latter’s site calls it a strategic partner without reference to national jurisdictions. Those are two very different things.
3. The release talks of Catalan law and European law but omits to mention that EU law gets sent to central government in Madrid, and that Madrid remains–as far as I am aware–the principal source and arbiter of food policy. Food safety is about stopping us getting salmonella, not promoting Catalan independence.
4. Both organisations talk about the importance of traceability for the consumer, but, although the various industries tied up in the supply chain are in there, neither appears to include any form of consumer representation. I’m not sure that’s the kind of democracy we need in Europe.
5. When’s the legal rumpus going to start with the vendors of the supply chain software, FoodTrace?

Update

Sorry, el Tone got me going on Uganda. I didn’t know until today that the fifth wife of world-famous accordeonist, Idi Amin, almost got sent down a few years back for having too many cockroaches in her London-based cow hoof cafe.

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Comments

1. Tony sez:
   26 October 2003 at 9:07 AM

   Thanks. What’s the ’strategic’ in ’strategic partner’ there for? To show you’re not playing bridge or indulging in affairs Ugandan?

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