Outlook for Environmental Problems and Food safety-Cooperative network and policy making for protecting life and agricultural environment

This symposium aims at identifying what problems we are confronted with concerning the environment and food safety in the 21st century, how we can make a cooperative network and formulate a policy for protecting life and agricultural environment and what tasks we should take upon ourselves in the domain of agricultural medicine and rural health. The symposium extended its scope from the interest of consumers to social needs of food safety, recovering movement of trust in food safety by the government, international standardization of policy for food safety, increasing relationship between food and environment pollution, and a new public management concerning the ecosystem and food safety. The following research problems are important for the Japanese Association of Rural Medicine as motives of cooperative work between producers, consumers and researchers; national strategy for food safety control, development or revision of food regulations and standards of safety, a program for strengthening food surveillance and control systems, enhancement research work of food and environment surveillance, and promotion of consumer education and other community outreach initiatives.