The Sunday News
Judith Phiri, Business Reporter
THE Animal Health and Food Safety for the Future (SAFE) project has procured a Laboratory Microwave Digester for the Government Analyst Laboratory in Harare, empowering the institution to achieve multi-element limits of detection previously unobtainable by other wet oxidation and dry ashing methods.
The SAFE project is part of a four-year European Union-funded Euro 40 million programme under the Zimbabwe Agricultural Growth Programme (ZAGP). The project is led by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations working in partnership with the Department of Veterinary Services, in the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Resettlement as well as the Department of Environmental Health in the Ministry of Health and Child Care.
According to the latest ZAGP newsletter, in addition to procuring the equipment, the project also installed the equipment and trained nine (six females and three males) employees on the use and management of the digester.
“The training focused on among other things; sample preparation, operating the machine and cleaning. The trainees were drawn from the Foods, Waters, Toxicology, Customs and Instruments sections,” said ZAGP.
Government Analyst Laboratory director Mr Livingstone Musiyambiri said the microwave digester has improved the turnaround time for sample analysis.
“The laboratory used to digest samples using the microwave digester at the Central Veterinary Laboratory on Thursdays only as the agreed time slot. At times the laboratory digested samples using the wet-oxidation and dry ashing methods which are not only slow but tedious and inefficient,” said Mr Musiyambiri.
The boost comes as good news for Zimbabwean food producers and exporters, as the use of the microwave digester has also boosted the chance of the organisation to get International Standards Organisation (ISO) accreditation which will enable GAL to get international recognition and effortlessly work with other labs through inter-laboratory testing.
The overall objective of the SAFE project, is to transform Zimbabwe’s animal health, sanitary and phytosanitary/food safety systems for improved livestock productivity, food safety and consumer safety to enhance market access.
SAFE is aligned to the locations of the ZAGP livestock value chains and the major ports of entry into Zimbabwe. To achieve the project objective, SAFE focuses on animal disease control and sanitary and phytosanitary and food safety services.
