European farmers were urged to press their governments to implement food safety laws in order to gain consumer confidence. EU commissioner for health and consumer protection David Byrne told them: "You have been too slow and timid in bringing home to the public that you are more than primary food producers." Byrne said that although most European countries had the best intentions to support food laws, implementation didn't always match up and that the commission lacked the clout to help it along. He said drastic actions such as financial penalties were being considered to speed things up. Byrne added that in the past food crises had been handled in an inept and misguided manner. "The end result has been a damaged image of agriculture and the farming sector." He called on farmers and law makers to improve the situation together. "Food reaches our tables through a very long and complex production chain. Any failing in that chain can and does undermine the good work and high standards elsewhere in that chain." Byrne added that the industry had been badly hit by BSE and that it had affected the image of food and farming in the way that thalidomide had affected the pharmaceutical industry. "We simply cannot afford the costs ­ political, economic and in terms of human health ­ of a repeat of disasters such as BSE." Byrne heralded the proposed European Food Authority as a cornerstone that would provide sound, independent and up-to-date scientific advice. FSA chairman Sir John Krebs agreed that Europeans had lost confidence in the food safety authorities, but said consumers also needed to be trusted to make up their own minds. He said there was no single solution to the issue of food safety but that consumers couldn't have everything at once: "Cheap, local, green, safe and varied." He also insisted that there was nothing inherently unsafe about food from intensive agriculture and added: "It's all about having the right control systems in place. There may be many other reasons, for example environmental or ethical, for favouring one production system or another, but food safety should not be a central argument." And Krebs defended the fact that the FSA had only once declared that foot and mouth wasn't a food safety risk at the outset of the crisis. "It's not our job to promote consumption of meat ­ it's up to the industry to use our information." {{NEWS }}