Zoonotic Pathogens

Zoonotic Pathogens in the Pork Supply Chain—What Should Be the Responsibilities of the Preharvest Sector?

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Abstract

A farm to table approach to food safety implies all participants along the food supply continuum, from production through to consumption, will bear some responsibility for mitigating the risk of foodborne illnesses. It is hard to disagree that all sectors should do what they can to contribute to a safer food supply. But at a practical level, how do we define and incentivize specific practices or changes in behaviour, which almost invariably will come at some cost. Conceptually, an ideal ‘farm to table’ program would define the set(s) of interventions throughout the continuum that optimizes the safety of food at the lowest overall cost. Furthermore, the optimal strategy may well differ among geographic regions, and over time, as the relative importance of different foodborne pathogens varies. To date there has been no articulated strategy for coordinating and incentivizing preferred interventions to optimize pork safety across different segments of the pork supply chain. The 1990s was an era of much optimism regarding the potential for ‘preharvest food safety’ to address foodborne disease risks, and this momentum spawned the ‘Safepork’ experience. Then, as now, Salmonella was the premier concern in pork safety in developed countries, and the Safepork community was born in 1996 when Dr. Paula Fedorka-Cray convened a meeting in Ames, Iowa, titled the “Ecology of Salmonella in Pork Production”. Unequivocally, preharvest control has delivered societally impactful successes in reducing the risk of parasitic (Taenia solium, Trichinella spiralis, Toxoplasma gondii) and chemical (e.g., antibiotic residues) hazards in pork (Davies, 2011). However, almost a quarter of a century after our founding event, I suggest that progress in preharvest control of enteric bacterial pathogens (e.g., Salmonella, Campylobacter, Yersinia, Listeria, E. coli) remains remarkably unremarkable. An unsurprising conclusion is that the feasibility, effectiveness, and affordability of preharvest interventions for reducing the risk of zoonotic foodborne pathogens is highly variable, and is a function of the ecology and epidemiology of the respective pathogens along the supply chain.

How to Cite:

Davies, P. R., (2019) “Zoonotic Pathogens in the Pork Supply Chain—What Should Be the Responsibilities of the Preharvest Sector?”, SafePork 13(1), 46–51. doi: https://doi.org//safepork.11147