The Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority of Singapore (AVA) has been established since 1 April 2000. It ensures a resilient supply of safe food, safeguards the health of animals and plants and facilitates agri-trade for the well-being of the nation.

Key Functions

AVA's key functions are to ensure food safety, ensure a resilient food supply, safeguard animal and plant health, safeguard animal welfare, promote agrotechnology, invest in research and development and protect endangered wildlife.

Vision

To be a premier organisation known for our professional expertise, excellent service and commitment towards the well-being of the nation.

Mission

To ensure a resilient supply of safe food, safeguard the health of animals and plants and facilitate agri-trade for Singapore.

The Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority of Singapore

Singapore

Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...

 (AVA) is the national authority on food safety for both primary and processed food. AVA ensures the safety of all food from production to just before retail. AVA adopts a science-based risk analysis and management approach based on international standards to evaluate and ensure food safety.

The vital components of AVA's comprehensive and integrated food safety system includes:

1. Review of production systems and practices at source
2. Risk assessment and the setting of food safety and food labelling standards
3. Tagging of consignments of primary produce to trace sources, and food labelling to facilitate recall
4. Inspection of primary produce and processed food at the points of entry into Singapore
5. Pre and post-slaughter inspections at local abattoirs
6. Inspection and accreditation of source farms, abattoirs, food-processing factories, both local and overseas
7. Monitoring and surveillance programmes for a wide range of food-borne hazards in primary and processed food
8. State-of-the-art laboratory testing capabilities for detecting and analysing a wide range of pathogens and chemical contaminants in livestock, frozen and chilled meat, live and chilled fish, vegetables, fruits, eggs and processed food
9. Promoting the adoption of good agricultural and manufacturing practices, and food safety assurance systems by the food industry
10. Close rapport with other national authorities
11. Close monitoring of world situation for new developments in food safety and potential threats

This food safety system is backed up by enforcement of food safety standards through a well-established legal framework as well as through food safety public education on the collective responsibility of AVA, the food industry and the public in ensuring food safety.

Ensuring resilience in food supply

AVA strives to provide Singapore

Singapore

Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...

 with an adequate and stable supply of food. They achieve this by diversifying the sources of supply to Singapore through efforts in the following areas :

• Approving new sources for importation of food by the private sector
• Participating in trade missions to seek out new sources
• Collaborating with the private sector, such as through AVA's agri-food Business Clusters in food sourcing

AVA's food diversification strategy allows Singapore to have resilience in supply. It gives AVA an increased flexibility and adaptability when supply from a particular source falls short. Coupled with Singapore's open market, source diversification has helped to maintain stability in the prices of the food.

Singapore's local farms also provide a small measure of our vegetables, fish

Fish

Fish are a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of all gill-bearing aquatic vertebrate animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as various extinct related groups...

 and egg

Egg (food)

Eggs are laid by females of many different species, including birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish, and have probably been eaten by mankind for millennia. Bird and reptile eggs consist of a protective eggshell, albumen , and vitellus , contained within various thin membranes...

 supply. AVA helps local farms to optimise their production by assisting them to employ intensive farming systems and safe food production practices.

Safeguarding animal and plant health

The AVA strives to ensure that Singapore is free from exotic animal and plant health diseases.

Animal health

As the national authority for animal health, AVA administers a comprehensive programme to prevent the introduction of animal diseases of agricultural, economic and public health importance.

The programme entails:

• Regulating the import of animals and their related products, and implementing quarantine measures to prevent the introduction and spread of animal diseases in Singapore
• Carrying out animal disease surveillance programmes to detect and control significant animal diseases
• Providing services for the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of animal diseases
• Facilitating Singapore's international trade through export health certification
• Emergency preparedness to detect exotic animal diseases early should they occur and implementing rapid eradication and control measures to stop the transmission of such diseases in Singapore

Plant protection

To safeguard the health of plant

Plant

Plants are living organisms belonging to the kingdom Plantae. Precise definitions of the kingdom vary, but as the term is used here, plants include familiar organisms such as trees, flowers, herbs, bushes, grasses, vines, ferns, mosses, and green algae. The group is also called green plants or...

s in Singapore, AVA administers a comprehensive programme to control as well as prevent the incursion of diseases and pests of economic and plant health importance.

The plant health programme includes:

• Regulating and inspecting imported plants and plant products and implementing quarantine and surveillance programmes to prevent the introduction and establishment of plant pests and diseases in Singapore
• Providing services for the diagnosis, treatment, monitoring and management of both exotic and endemic plant diseases and pests to protect the plant trade and industry, and the environment
• Certification of plants and plant products for freedom from pests and diseases to facilitate their export

Safeguarding animal welfare

The AVA safeguards the welfare of animals in Singapore by strictly enforcing regulations to protect animals against cruel treatment and educating the public on responsible pet ownership. The Responsible Pet Ownership Public Education Programme was launched in 2004 to attain the two objectives of promoting responsible pet ownership and to tackle the strays issue. Working closely with animal welfare organisations, AVA aims to drive home the message of "A Pet is for Life".

Promoting agrotechnology

The challenge of maximising productivity from limited agricultural land and sea is addressed by agro-technology and agri-biotechnology. By providing technical expertise and consultancy services both locally and in the region, the AVA is making investments in potential new sources of food supply for Singapore.

Investment in research and development

The AVA is committed to research and development. AVA engage in R&D projects that are aligned with their mission and focus on production systems, breeding, nutrition, disease control, aquaculture and vegetable production. Among others, AVA continue to develop new testing capabilities to effectively detect an ever-increasing list of food contaminants, emerging food pathogens and animal and plant diseases. Research and development is also essential to AVA's efforts to increase agricultural productivity, and help the farming sector to remain competitive. AVA also works in collaboration with institutes of higher learning, dedicated research centres like the Institute of Molecular Agrobiology, Temasek Life Sciences Laboratory, the Tropical Marine Sciences Institute, and the private sector.

Protecting endangered wildlife

The AVA is committed to protecting endangered wildlife by controlling their trade and preventing their exploitation. AVA have been appointed as the national authority responsible for the implementation and enforcement of the Convention on International Trade in endangered Species of Wild Fauna

Fauna

Fauna or faunæ is all of the animal life of any particular region or time. The corresponding term for plants is flora.Zoologists and paleontologists use fauna to refer to a typical collection of animals found in a specific time or place, e.g. the "Sonoran Desert fauna" or the "Burgess shale fauna"...

 and Flora

Flora

Flora is the plant life occurring in a particular region or time, generally the naturally occurring or indigenous—native plant life. The corresponding term for animals is fauna.-Etymology:...

(CITES).