Supplying the American public with food involves many participants and several stages that are linked together in a complex chain. Every link in this chain is vulnerable to disease-causing pathogens. The first link is the farmers, who raise crops and livestock. Next come the transporters, who move these products to markets and then to slaughtering plants and processors. These links compose the preharvest area of the U.S. food chain.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) has accepted the challenge of providing leadership in an effort to reduce microbiological pathogens in the preharvest critical points of food production. The APHIS network of veterinarians and epidemiologists is strategically located to help control diseases that threaten animal and public health. Using its infrastructure, expertise, and alliances, APHIS can provide a formidable preharvest food-safety service. APHIS will be working closely with several other Government agencies as well as industry groups, university personnel, and private practitioners throughout the country.

The mission of APHIS’ Veterinary Services is to control or eradicate pathogens that pose an economic threat to the livestock and poultry industries and that also, in some cases, endanger public health. Examples of the latter are salmonellosis, tuberculosis, and Brucellosis.

Over the years, APHIS has worked with producers, veterinarians, State and international animal health professionals, public health agencies, academicians, shippers, and market operators to resolve animal and public health concerns. Through these efforts, APHIS has earned an international reputation for successful disease exclusion and eradication.

APHIS veterinarians and animal health technicians know how animals and birds are identified and how they are moved from farms to slaughter. This knowledge enables them to trace animals infected or exposed to diseases to their original herd or flock, where effective control of pathogens can begin. In addition to its own field work force, APHIS uses about 40,000 agency-accredited private veterinarians to assist with health certification and testing of animals.

An APHIS headquarters staff at Hyattsville, MD, is developing preharvest intervention strategies for pathogens that threaten food safety. This Staff cooperates closely with fellow epidemiologists, economists, statisticians, and computer specialists at the APHIS Center for Epidemiology and Animal Health (CEAH). CEAH develops risk assessments about food safety and animal health for agricultural industries and government cooperators. CEAH also designs and implements studies on specific pathogens.

The APHIS National Veterinary Services Laboratories (NVSL) Serve as national reference laboratories and a technical resource for advanced diagnostic information. NVSL coordinates, monitors, and standardizes testing procedures for disease eradication programs. NVSL provides other government agencies, universities, and industry with improved techniques for detecting animal diseases.

Livestock industry groups are developing quality assurance programs to reduce drug residues and enhance the quality and safety of their products. For example, the Pork Quality Assurance Program and the Dairy Quality Assurance Program provide ways for U.S. producers to do their part in providing a safe, wholesome product for consumers. These programs show how the principles of Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points, or HACCP, can be applied at the farm and feedlot as well as at many other points along the food chain continuum.

Reducing pathogens that cause foodborne illnesses at the earliest possible point will benefit everyone. The costs to control outbreaks of foodborne illnesses - including emergency diagnosis, treatment, and lost production - are enormous. The disease-prevention objectives put forth by the U.S. Public Health Service in 1991 set target goals for substantially reducing illness caused by pathogens of concern by the year 2000. APHIS is reviewing preharvest risk-management strategies for these pathogens, including Salmonella enteritidis (SE). The APHIS SE control program already has had an impact on reducing the health risk posed by this pathogen.

Increasing consumer confidence in the safety of the Nation’s food supply will enhance the domestic and international marketing opportunities for meat, dairy, and poultry products made under safe conditions. Thus, availability of information about the health of the originating herds and flocks will make raising healthy animals economically advantageous for livestock and poultry producers as demand for safer food products increases. Using processes on the farm that minimize risk and enhance food safety will add to the value of these meats and dairy products.

Preharvest food safety does not have to mean more regulations. It does, however, require better dissemination of the latest information on safe production practices, adoption of onfarm practices to reduce the risk of chemical and microbiological contamination, and the establishment of a new partnership between industry and public and private animal health professionals to develop strategies that ensure a safer food supply.