The UW-Madison Food Research Institute is co-sponsoring a free, 1.5-day conference about food import safety. The conference, which is set for May 26-27, will address this topic from a variety of perspectives, including systems analysis, infrastructure resilience, governance and policy analysis. Interested individuals are encouraged to attend.

Two morning plenary talks will set the stage by covering the origins of adulteration and contamination in rapidly developing economies, and by examining import violations found at both port and land-borders. An industry panel will address several aspects of supplier management and self governance, including supplier agreements. Another panel will discuss cost-effective sampling schemes, testing and detection technology advancements, and testing limitations. European speakers will discuss approaches from the European Food Safety Authority and European Commission used to regulate safety in imported foods, including the rapid alert system. A second day panel will be chaired by a well-known industry spokesman for food safety, who will be speaking to the way forward. This will include discussions of global approaches to food protection, as well as different forms of governance, including third party oversight.

For more information, or to register, go to: http://wage.wisc.edu/events/Index.aspx?ID=527

Sponsors include: Center for World Affairs and the Global Economy (WAGE), Center for Freight and Infrastructure Research and Education (CFIRE), Engineering Professional Development (EPD), European Union Center of Excellence (EUCE), ISyE (Department of Industrial & Systems Engineering), FRI (Food Research Institute), CIBER (Center for International Business Education and Research, The China Initiative.