Understanding and Mitigating Risk Factors Associated with Food Production

The safety of the food supply is a continuing issue for agriculture, with an estimated 81 million instances of foodborne illnesses in the USA annually, with an estimated cost of $152 billion dollars per year to the US economy. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 46% of these illnesses were due to produce - thus food safety is very much an agricultural issue. This multi-researcher project will focus on critical aspects of food safety that will increase the understanding and mitigating risk factors associated with cleaning, sanitation, cross contamination, detection, and worker behaviors in food production. This team aims to cover several aspects related to improving food safety through fundamental and applied research, as well as through the dissemination the new knowledge discovered within this work to better provide technical support to producers and processors. Together these activities will contribute to the long-term goal of reducing the overall risk of foodborne illness.