Abu Dhabi Food Control Authority spent 1740 hours in order to disseminate awareness among various sectors in the society last year. Through a total number of 334 activities the authority reached out to tens of thousands of students, workers and staff at agricultural and food facilities and shoppers.

In this regard, Thamer AlQasemi, spokesperson of ADFCA said: "these activities come in line with ADFCA's framework to highlight its role as a control authority dealing with food safety, in educating public and executing its mission to promote safe agricultural and food practices through comprehensive and effective programs that could cover various social strata in addition to correcting their wrong practices and providing latest knowledge on how to handle food throughout the food chain safely"

He said, with this good results, ADFCA has achieved around 126% of the set targets for the past year in the awareness and education field. Terming it as a big achievement considering the government services in the awareness and education, he said it will boost ADFCA's journey towards excellence and will bring in promising results in the food safety levels of the emirate.

According to him ADFCA planned diversification of topics, methodology and target groups in addition to the expanded geographical coverage while designed these activities which resulted in the success of the programs.

He said Abu Dhabi witnessed the biggest awareness drives last year during the Ramadan and Hajj seasons. ADFCA machinery worked hard to ensure food safety during the fasting and festival seasons through introducing safe food handling practices and to inculcate in them the culture of giving priority to safety and health while purchasing, preparing, transporting and storing food products. During Hajj, ADFCA joined Hands with Awqaaf and concerted the efforts to ensure safety of food for the UAE's Hajj mission in addition to spreading messages targeting public through all means of communication.

During Abu Dhabi Science Festival, ADFCA trained more than 5000 children on safe food practices through two types of interactive and fun-filled workshops under the title "Junior Inspector" and "Smart Shopper". In Zayed Heritage Festival, thousands of visitors received awareness and education on food safety as well as good agriculture practices through the authority's stand named as Agriculture Oasis.

Last year, ADFCA carried out a number of field visits to several food facilities and markets targeting school groups through which students had hands-on experience on how ADFCA rules and requirements contributing in maintaining the food safety levels in the emirate. Likewise, ADFCA organized several field trips for students to Research Stations and agricultural facilities in the emirate through which they learned latest knowledge in terms of food safety with the guidance of experts in the field.

The winter-time campaign targeting desert goers, and the campaign to preserve fish varieties such as Safi and Sheri were other important activities in the list of awareness and education program organized last year.