Good afternoon. It is a pleasure for me to be here with you today. I want to share with you my thoughts on where we are on food safety issues related to animal production, identify some of the forces that are driving change in food animal production, describe some potential changes the food animal production community may be facing, and discuss possible approaches to accommodating these changes.

By "we", I mean all of us involved with or affected by animal production food safety. That includes government agencies at all levels, all segments of industry, academicians, veterinarians, animal scientists, consumers, etc. Our roles may be different and our perspectives may be different but we all are interlinked by common issues and common goals. As we look to the future and address the issues we will be talking about today, we, individually and collectively, can only achieve true success by working cooperatively with one another to develop positive, win/win solutions.

Where are we today regarding animal production food safety? In my opinion we are doing an excellent job of raising food animals. Our producers are better educated, they have better equipment, they have stronger support services, and they raise more and healthier animals now than at any time in this country's history.

If we are doing a better job than ever in producing animals for food, why are we constantly dealing with food safety issues? The simple answer to that question is the status quo is never good enough. Because of competitive pressures, all of the various parties, whether they are producers, packers, government, academia, consumers or whoever, constantly are under pressure to do their respective jobs more efficiently and/or more effectively. For example:

Individual producers compete with their neighbors to raise animals faster and cheaper. Animals that receive a premium today will become tomorrow's standard as other producers strive to keep pace.

Commodities compete against each other. Maintaining market share means constantly looking for an advantage such as lower price, better quality, less fat, etc.

Government agencies are under constant pressure to justify their activities or risk being abolished. The public is not content with them addressing problems after the fact but wants more preventive actions undertaken. As a result, they are doing a better job of identifying problems. They can detect drug and chemical residues at the parts per billion level and in some cases, at even lower levels. Our health monitoring systems are more effective in tracking and identifying the source of food-related disease outbreaks.

The natural curiosity of researchers drives them to investigate new areas of interest or potential concern.

Consumer expectations of product quality are extremely high. Consumer activists are well organized and quick to respond to issues of concern to them. Because of the abundance of food farmers produce, consumers have broad choices in the products available to them and can easily influence the respective industries by switching their purchasing preferences. If they don't like how one commodity is produced, they will quickly switch to another.

Food safety issues have international implications and can limit access to foreign markets as countries protect their citizens by imposing high standards for imported products.

The ultimate result of all these pressures and interrelationships is that change is something that is constantly with us. There will always be food safety issues that have to be addressed. How we choose to address them is the key as to whether our futures will be filled with frustration and pessimism or optimism and growth. Food safety is a common concern we all share, both from a personal perspective as individual consumers of food products and as professionals from a career/business perspective. Therefore, it should not be a competitive issue. When it comes to food safety, we want everyone to be a winner because failures in the food safety arena hurt all of us. They undermine confidence in products that dedicated individuals have invested their livelihoods to produce and market, they drive up the cost of production, they increase the pressure for additional regulations and they threaten our individual well-being. It is in our mutual best interest to focus our efforts on cooperative approaches to addressing food safety issues.

The Food Safety and Inspection Service is one of the government agencies whose actions directly and indirectly affect the food animal production community. We have a direct effect on packers and processors of red meat and poultry, and now also egg processors. Our actions also indirectly affect the individuals and firms that produce, market and transport the live animals which are processed in plants we inspect. The Animal Production Food Safety Program provides agency leadership in addressing food safety concerns associated with animal production, transportation, marketing and pre-slaughter preparation of livestock and poultry. The staff is responsible for outreach and liaison activities directed at industry which are intended to develop and sustain risk reduction strategies in animal production. The staff also works to coordinate Federal agency food safety initiatives which involve animal production issues.

FSIS' approach at the food animal production level is strictly voluntary. We want to work with producers in a collaborative way, and where appropriate, act as a catalyst to bring parties together to develop consensus on the best mechanisms for addressing food safety issues. While industry has the primary responsibility for assuring the safety of food, we want to work together with all parties to achieve positive win-win solutions that benefit all segments of the food animal production continuum.

Currently, the APFSP staff is focusing its efforts in two parallel areas. The first is a long-term initiative in partnership with APHIS and others which focuses on identification of practices that may be employed by producers, auction markets, animal transporters and others to reduce the potential for food animals to shed human pathogens. We are at the very beginning of learning what could possibly be done in this area, so these efforts are focusing on gathering information to conduct epidemiological analyses. The results will be used to plan studies to test potential approaches to actually reducing human pathogens in animals presented for slaughter or eggs for consumption.

Examples of FSIS cooperative projects to identify risk factors, predict trends, define test populations and analyze the impact of production practices include:

Swine (In conjunction with NAHMS)

* To determine the national prevalence of Salmonella spp. and E. coli 0157:H7 in market swine.

* To determine the national prevalence of emerging foodborne pathogens Yersinia, Campylobactor and Listeria in market swine.

• To identify the potential risk factors associated with the shedding of Salmonella

spp. and E. coli 0157:H7 in market swine.

Dairy (In conjunction with NAHMS)

* To determine the national prevalence of Salmonella and E. coli 0157:H7 in adult dairy cattle.

 

* To identify the potential risk factors associated with the shedding of E. coli 0157:H7 and Salmonella in the feces of adult dairy cattle.

 

* Compare the prevalence of E. coli 0157:H7 and Salmonella in milk cows to that of cull cows at market.

 

* Evaluate herd-level and individual animal-level risk factors for Salmonella shedding on farm and for cull cows.

 

 

 

* To determine presence of shedding E. coli 0157:H7 in pre-slaughter animals and in dairy cattle originating in New York.

 

* To evaluate pre-slaughter ecology of E. coli 0157:H7 in cull dairy cattle.

• To assess producer awareness of New York Beef Quality Assurance Program and its principles.

* To define the ecology of E. coli 0157:H7.

* To define the effect of management practices on E. coli 0157:H7 shedding by dairy calves and to follow case controlled studies over 2-3 years.

 

* To sample water sources, vectors and carriers for E.coli 0157:H7.

* To determine if healthy, well-conditioned culled dairy cattle shed less Salmonella at slaughter than poor-conditioned culled dairy cows.

 

The second area of emphasis is to support industry efforts to reduce potential violative drug, pesticide and chemical residues in animals sent to slaughter/processing. Our efforts here are mainly focused on supporting the various commodities' quality assurance programs.

One of the significant actions we have taken has been to work with the Livestock Conservation Institute (LCI) to support development of the Food Safety Digest. This document, which will be published six times per year, will highlight the positive actions that members of the food animal production community are taking to assure the safety of our food supply. It will serve as a mechanism to share information, announce proposals, report study results, build networks, establish cooperative initiatives, recognize achievement and generally promote positive approaches to resolving problems and issues facing us. The Food Safety Digest will be distributed free to all interested groups involved in food animal production. FSIS is underwriting initial costs of this publication with the hope that it can become self-sustaining. We are extremely grateful to LCI for undertaking the publication and distribution tasks for the Digest. Anyone wishing to contribute articles, reports or other information for publication in the Food Safety Digest should contact Glenn Slack at LCI.

As you are aware, FSIS has published a proposed regulation that will require meat and poultry slaughter and processing plants to implement HACCP-based programs. The Agency received both written and oral comments which were carefully evaluated and incorporated, as appropriate, into a draft final rule which is now undergoing departmental review. While we are not permitted to discuss specific details of the proposed regulation until the final document is published in the Federal Register, we can talk about general characteristics of HACCP programs. One thing that is safe to say is that a HACCP-based approach will cause livestock and poultry slaughter and processing plants to begin thinking more about the source of their animals and over time they may want more information on the status of animals they purchase. How they accomplish this will have a definite effect on producers and others in the food animal production chain. Under a HACCP system, every firm must meet the same rigorous safety standards, yet each has the flexibility to devise and adopt food safety plans that are uniquely suited to their own circumstances. A challenge that we all face will be to develop a common understanding among packers, producers and others on what will be reasonable and practical information to expect on incoming animals. We need to develop approaches that will allow food animal producers, auction markets, transporters and others in the food animal production chain to provide packers/processors with the information they will want to implement their HACCP plans without disrupting producers' ability to market their animals or the ability of the rest of the chain to function. Some potential areas of discussion might include the following:

What kinds of things are producers already doing that can demonstrate the safety of their animals? What information is needed on production practices used by producers? What information is needed on individual animals? When is it appropriate to handle animals as a group, lot, etc.?

What models may exist for guiding industry's actions? Are there other industries that have programs in place to guarantee to their buyers the quality of the product they produce?

Who should be involved in this process? What parties need to participate in the determination of what information is needed? How will they establish credibility with consumers, export markets?

How can a consensus be reached on what information may be appropriate? What process should be used to determine the criteria for packing/processing plants to accept or reject animals?

I would like you to give serious consideration as to how the food animal production community can respond to these concerns. If we have time today, I think it would be appropriate to begin exchanging our thoughts and discuss how we can move forward together.