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Review of non-commercial wild food

The New Zealand Food Safety Authority (NZFSA) is reviewing non-commercial wild food in New Zealand to assess the potential human health risks and provide people with information about those risks so that they can make safe decisions about the wild food they gather and eat.

The wild foods considered in the review include many species of game animals, birds and fish, marine and freshwater invertebrates, insects, land and water plants, fungi and fruits present in New Zealand.

Hunting and gathering wild food is a traditional part of New Zealand’s culture, but the chemical and microbial risks we are exposed to from eating wild food have never been comprehensively assessed. Such foods are not subject to monitoring or risk management in the way that commercially available food is. The hazards may exist because of human activities (e.g. poisoning programmes or agricultural pollution), or may be natural occurrences (e.g. natural toxins and bacteria.)

As an initial step in the review, NZFSA commissioned a report from the Institute of Environmental Research Ltd (ESR) to assess the chemical and microbial risks in regard to the harvest and consumption of wild food. ESR undertook a search of available scientific and research papers, and published reports. The report indicates that wild foods may not present a major risk of human exposure to foodborne hazards in New Zealand; however there is a lack of reliable information on the harvesting and consumption of wild food in New Zealand.

Risks associated with food preparation are not included in the report. Such practices are often common to both wild and commercially produced foods (for example, cross-contamination in the kitchen). Although some food preparation methods (e.g. cooking) can reduce or eliminate many of the hazards identified, the ESR report focuses on the level of hazard in wild foods at the time of harvesting.

NZFSA has now prepared a public position paper on non-commercial wild food. The position paper is in part an information-gathering exercise, but also details some proposals that could be of assistance to hunters and other gatherers of wild food. NZFSA wants the community’s view on the matters raised in the position paper, and whether the proposals suggested are the best ways of gathering information and helping people make informed choices about wild food.

Included in the paper are proposals such as:

• the inclusion of an additional question in the Adult Nutrition Survey to be conducted by the Ministry of Health in 2007/08, this could provide more robust data on the consumption of wild food

• educational activities , including improving availability and access to information

• improving or establishing inter-agency collaboration in collecting, collating and disseminating information to key target groups

• possible future areas of research or data gathering to increase information on wild harvesting and consumption

• the possible use of web based technology, such as Global Positioning System (GPS) with a Geographic Information System (GIS), to identify the geographic location of wild animals at the time they are taken thus minimising the risk of toxic residues from poisons when such use is known (e.g. organised poison drops or bait lines).

The position paper suggests empowering Maori to address the food safety issues that may be associated with wild food. Commissioned research on the preservation of traditional Maori tikanga around food gathering and food handling, which in the past may have provided a level of protection from some food safety hazards has also been suggested.

The position paper and the ESR report will be available from July 2005 from the NZFSA website to download in PDF or html (www.nzfsa.govt.nz). Hard copies will also be available.

Contact for enquiries:
Audrey Taulalo
Policy Group
New Zealand Food Safety Authority
Ph: (04) 463 2580
email: Audrey.taulalo@nzfsa.govt.nz.