animalagriculture.org

Animal Production Food Safety Committee

Mid-year Report
September 9, 2003

During the 2003 NIAA Leaders Forum, the following report was given:

The committee met at the annual NIAA meeting in April 2003 in Cincinnati, OH.  During this meeting, Drs. Jerry Gillespie and Harry Snelson were introduced as the newly appointed committee Chair and Vice chair respectively.  The committee reviewed existing resolutions drafted in previous meetings and discussed the need for additional resolutions.  It was agreed to drop 3 resolutions, amend four, reaffirm one and introduce two.

Since the annual meeting, subgroups of the committee have met by conference call to discuss the following 2 action items:

1)  Food Safety Digest – it was decided that the National Institute for Animal Agriculture (NIAA) will be publishing, on a trial basis, a quarterly newsletter entitled "NIAA FOOD SAFETY DIGEST".  The cost of the publication will be underwritten by USDA-FSIS.  It is envisioned to cover topics on food safety and security from at least four perspectives; federal government, state government, private sector (farm-to-table), and academia (research, teaching and outreach).  The Digest could be a very useful way to keep our membership and constituents informed on food safety and security issues in a timely way, i.e., add to our communication and education efforts.  LCI, NIAA's predecessor, published a bi-monthly "FOOD SAFETY DIGEST" between 1996-1999. 

2)  Communication needs – a sub-committee was formed at the annual meeting to pursue a structure of a program to enhance communication on food safety/security issues across all segments of the food system.  This sub-committee met by conference call on June 5, 2003 and proposed the following action items:

1. The Animal Production Food Safety Committee should start developing a package delineating the key food safety issues important in a quality assurance program.
2. Once developed, this package should be presented to the individual commodity groups to identify the specific issues relative to each individual species in order to establish quality control points for development of a species specific quality assurance program that addresses the food safety issues identified. 
• This quality assurance program should be developed by the species groups. 
• If a quality assurance program already exists, it should be evaluated for its effectiveness regarding the key food safety issues identified.
3. NIAA should evaluate the development of an appropriate marketing strategy to promote acceptance and adherence to the programs developed.

2003 Objectives

In 2003 and the 2004 annual meeting, the committee would like to pursue the following topics for discussion:

• Pursue funding for the publication of the NIAA Food Safety Digest
• Further delineate ways to improve communication between and within the production animal sectors
• Follow up on progress at the Federal level on food safety/security initiatives
• Follow up on action taken in response to food safety/security NIAA resolutions
• Follow up on food safety/security education initiative by Will Hueston
• Follow up on the progress being made by the various food safety/security institutions/centers and efforts to combine their efforts by Will Hueston
• John Ragan asked for follow-up on how FSIS might best address on-farm food safety initiatives.
• Gary Marsh to discuss how to bring the private sector more immediately into the discussions of food safety/security.  The example given was the extraordinary changes that occurred in Coca Cola following the “product tampering” the company experienced in Europe.

There was an expressed desire for the Committee to be pro-active, with continued activity between annual meetings.  For example, there was a need to follow up on issues such as progress on on-farm quality assurance programs (certification updates).

Similarly, there is a need to encourage discussions across all segments of the industry (animal and plant foods, federal and state, private and public, all segments of production agriculture with all other segments) as it relates to food safety/security issues.  There needs to be follow up on these issues between meetings that translates to steps to improve “real communication.” 

Dr. Jerry Gillespie, Chair                                                Dr. Harry Snelson, Vice Chair