The United States needs a comprehensive approach to red meat and poultry safety that begins at the farm levels, says a report released today by Pew Charitable Trusts. Titled, “Food safety from farm to fork,” the report says on-the-farm “interventions,” such as using vaccines and other treatments, “can significantly reduce the risk” of harmful bacteria.
In the U.S., an estimated 2 million cases of illness annually are attributed to contaminated meat, says Pew. When medical costs and lost productivity are added up, the illnesses cost $5.8 billion. Contamination occurs most commonly during or after slaughter. A comprehensive approach across the food chain — before, during and after slaughter — is the best way to prevent food-borne illness, says Pew.
“More can and should be done on farms and feedlots,” said Sandra Eskin, director of Pew’s food safety project. “An effective food safety systems includes measures to prevent contamination at every step along the meat and poultry supply chain.” The report focused on activities that reduce the presence of the major pathogens -— salmonella, E. coli and campylobacter bacteria — that can lead to contamination of beef, pork and poultry meat.
Livestock producers have resisted government intrusion into their operations. Industry opposition has thwarted proposals for a trace-back system that would identify herd mates of animals involved in food-borne illness. Operators fear they could be blamed, or even sued, for contamination that occurs later in the food processing system.
Pew notes that adoption of on-farm control measures are, in many cases, hindered by economic challenges.” Consumers may benefit from vaccination of livestock but the producer in unlikely to be rewarded for it by a higher sale price.
Successful programs in other countries characteristically begin with breeding stock, employ multiple interventions, tailor interventions for the species and optimum time for treatment, and couple feed safety, biosecurity and pathogen surveillance with the pre-harvest interventions. Pew described pre-harvest interventions as substances or management practices that reduce the risk of microbial contamination. They include substances such and prebiotics and probiotics that encourage development of beneficial bacteria in the digestive tract; anti-pathogens such as vaccines, antimicrobial peptides, bacteriophages that kill bacteria, and veterinary medicines including antimicrobials; and practices that reduce exposure to pathogens, such as feed and water hygiene, biosecurity, and separation of healthy and ill stock.
In a two-page list of recommendations, Pew called for larger USDA funding of research into on-the-farm practices that would reduce the chance of bacterial contamination, including alternatives to antibiotics such as probiotics. Federal agencies should “provide incentives for the implementation of pre-harvest food safety interventions, be they regulatory or economically motivated,” it said. It also recommended timely regulatory of new and promising products.
The livestock industry should emphasize pre-harvest interventions as a part of herd management, along with biosecurity and feed and water safety, said the Pew report. In sectors where a small number of breeding herds or flocks are the source of the bulk of the food-bearing animals, it might be useful to create incentives for pathogen eradication at the start of the supply chain. As an example, it said broiler chickens reach market weight in a few weeks. Treatment of the broiler-breeder flocks that produce them could prevent infection of the offspring for the first weeks of life and reduce pathogens at slaughter time.
Pew urged all parties to share information that would strengthen the meat safety system. “This will require overcoming legal and logistical challenges such as privacy and transparency concerns and information technology infrastructure compatibility,” said the report.