Michele Jay-Russell participated in a full-day session on Aquaponics at the Aquaculture America 2018 annual conference. The conference was sponsored by the World Aquaculture Society (WAS) and their partners - the US Aquaculture Society, a chapter of WAS; the National Aquaculture Association; and the Aquaculture Suppliers Association.
For approximately two years, Jay-Russell and collaborators have been conducting research to assess potential zoonotic risks associated with aquaponic production of fish and fresh produce using a system designed at the Center for Aquatic Biology and Aquaculture (CABA).This international conference provided an exciting opportunity to network with other researchers conducting aquaponics-related research around the world. Elizabeth Antaki-Zukoski, former WCFS postdoc with Jay-Russell, lead the study and is currently preparing to publish results from the experimental greenhouse trials using a lettuce-tilapia model. Co-PI and co-author, Esteban Soto, also attended the conference and presented in the Aquatic Animal Health and Diagnostics session.
Aquaponics is the integration of aquaculture and hydroponics that is now being used as an example of sustainable food production. Because fresh vegetables are usually consumed raw, there are concerns about microbial food safety and zoonotic risks from fish waste. The Produce Safety Rule preamble states that covered produce grown in aquaponic systems is subject to the same potential for contamination from agricultural water, biological soil amendments of animal origin, and animals as covered produce grown using non-aquaponic systems. The purpose of this study was to determine the survival, persistence, and transfer via root uptake of an attenuated Salmonella strain in a closed-loop recirculating aquaponic system (RAS) used for tilapia and butterhead lettuce production. Data from this study will fill knowledge gaps regarding how foodborne pathogens may persist and move through a RAS system, and promote development of good agriculture practices specific to aquaponics.
The complete abstract text can be seen here.
Citation:
Jay-Russell, M.T., E. Antaki-Zukoski, G. Mangalam, P. Aminabadi, F.A. Sebastião, B. Martínez López, F. Conte, O. Illanes, R.N. Fong, S. Taber, E. Soto. 2018. Evaluation of food safety risks in aquaponic production of vegetables and tilapia. Aquaculture America 2018, Las Vegas, NV, February 19-22.
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AVMA Committee on Antimicrobials | February 6-7, 2018, Schaumburg, IL
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Michele Jay-Russell attended the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) Committee on Antimicrobials (CoA) in-person meeting held near the AVMA headquarters. The Committee was organized to serve as the primary resource to the AVMA on antimicrobial issues and provide oversight of all AVMA antimicrobial policies. The membership is made up of 9 voting seats and an at-large member including representatives from in avian, bovine, equine, fish, small animal, small ruminants, and swine practice, as well as food safety and veterinary public health. Michele Jay-Russel currently serves as the alternate representative for the American Association of Food Safety and Public Health Veterinarians (AAFSPHV), along with primary representative and CoA Vice-Chair, Joni Scheftel. Terry Lehenbauer, also from the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, attended the meeting as the representative for the American Association of Bovine Practitioners (AABP).
The CoA achieved a major milestone when the AVMA Board of Directors and House of Delegates voted unanimously to approve the AVMA “Policy On Stewardship Definition and Core Principles” developed by the committee. This policy is a consensus document and is very important first step in moving the profession forward from policy based on judicious usage guidance towards antimicrobial stewardship, which includes disease prevention and good management as a core principle. The stewardship policy and core principles are available on the AVMA website at: https://www.avma.org/KB/Policies/Pages/Antimicrobial-Stewardship-Definition-and-Core-Principles.aspx
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AAFSPHV representative Joni Scheftel (right) and alternate Michele Jay-Russell at the AVMA Committee on Antimicrobials meeting
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Global Food Security Course, University of Pennsylvania | March 27, 2018, via Skype
Bennie Osburn was a guest lecturer in the University of Pennsylvania’s Anthropology 461-401 Course on Global Food Security. He addressed the crowd of more than 100 students and faculty about veterinary medicine’s role in food safety, emphasizing the benefit of taking a One Health approach to solving the complex problem of thousands of illnesses and deaths caused each year by foodborne diseases. The audience gathered in a Penn Vet classroom to listen to the 50 minute lecture via Skype on March 27.
The global food security course is an interdisciplinary course organized by the University of Pennsylvania School Of Veterinary Medicine and offered through the department of Anthropology. It focuses on the problems of food demand and consumption, production and supply in our increasingly globalized and urbanizing world. Special attention is paid to the intersections of current technologies of food production, current nutritional problems, environmental change and resource degradation, and the changing quality of human social life under globalization.
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Management Course | February 28, 2018, Tallahassee, FL
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It was a full house at the course in Tallahassee with more than 50 participants
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MGT 448, All Hazards Planning for Animal, Agricultural, and Flood Related Disasters, held in Tallahassee on February 28th was the first cross-training effort for the Florida State Animal Response Team (SART) and Florida’s Integrated Rapid Response Team (FLIRRT). Tracey Stevens, an instructor and trainer with WIFSS, presented the course, with the support of Summer Williams from FLIRRT and LeiAnna Tucker with SART.
This management level course provides emergency planners, and other essential community members, with the background information needed to participate in the development of supplemental animal, agricultural, and food (AAF) related disaster response plans that could be included within the existing EOP for an operational area (OA).
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Dairy Expo Planning Meeting | February 22, 2018, Sacramento, CA
WIFSS staff members Dr. Michael Payne and David Goldenberg are working with the FBI in designing and running a dairy table top exercise to provide awareness of vulnerabilities in the chain of production from cow to consumer. The proposed day long exercise will take place in the Sacramento area. Attending the first planning meeting on February 22 in addition to Payne and Goldenberg were FBI Special Agents Sheldon Fung, Sunshine Adams, Todd Piantedosi, California State Veterinarian Annette Jones, and California Milk Advisory Board Director of Communications Jennifer Giambroni.
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FSMA Produce Safety Rule Hybrid Training Meeting | February 21, 2018, Davis, CA
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Alda Pires listens as Bennie Osburn welcomes the steering team members joining the meeting in-person. Erin Di Caprio, Heather Johnson and Greg Wlasiuk monitor participants joining the meeting online
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The Specialty Crop Growers FSMA Produce Safety Rule Training Team kicked off the start of the 2 ½ year project to develop training materials for specialty crop growers in California. The team developing a guide for California's mid- and small- farm specialty crop growers to meet the requirements of the Produce Safety Rule (PSR) held a webinar/in-person meeting on Feb 21. Bennie Osburn, director for Outreach and Training at WIFSS, UC Cooperative Extension specialist Alda Pires, UCCE specialist Erin DiCaprio, Heather Johnson, instructional systems designer, and Ronald Bond, water quality researcher and field coordinator, along with Gregory Wlasiuk, E-learning curriculum designer from WIFSS, were present in Valley Hall to spearhead the hybrid meeting. Donna Pahl from the Produce Safety Alliance (PSA), gave overviews of PSA training and outreach materials, and Steve Patton, CDFA, gave an update on FSMA.
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Produce Safety Alliance Courses | February-March, 2018, Central Valley, CA
Linda Harris was lead instructor for a PSA Grower Training Course for almond growers on February 8 in Modesto with Tim Birmingham from the Almond Board of California. She led the same course for pistachio growers in Visalia on February 9 with co-instructors Michele Jay-Russell and Bwalya Lungu (Food Science Dept., UC Davis). The almond-specific course was repeated in Sacramento on March 2 and in Tulare on March 14. An additional pistachio-specific course was held on March 29 with co-instructors Michele Jay-Russell and Michelle Danyluk from the University of Florida. Another pistachio course is scheduled in Tulare for April 14.
This course provides a foundation of Good Agricultural Practices (GAPs) and co-management information, FSMA Produce Safety Rule requirements, and details on how to develop a farm food safety plan. Information about agricultural water (production and post-harvest), worker hygiene and training, soil amendments, wildlife and land use, and post-harvest handling and sanitation is included. The PSA Grower Training Course is one way to satisfy the FSMA Produce Safety Rule requirement that "At least one supervisor or responsible party for your farm must have successfully completed food safety training at least equivalent to that received under standardized curriculum recognized as adequate by the Food and Drug Administration."
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Microbial Challenge Testing for Foods | May 15-16, 2018, Chicago, IL
Linda Harris will again participate in the IAFP Microbial Challenge Testing workshop in May. This popular course is based on the report of the National Advisory Committee on Microbiological Criteria for Foods (NACMCF) on conducting challenge studies. A detailed description of the course content is available here.
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Wild Rodents and Food Safety
Rob Atwill, Xunde Li, and Michele Jay-Russell, in collaboration with Roger Baldwin of the Department of Wildlife, Fish and Conservation Biology, the Yolo County UC Cooperative Extension, and Wildlife Services-USDA, found that wildlife trapped in proximity to hedgerows adjacent to tomato fields or walnut orchards did not have significantly higher prevalence of key food safety pathogens compared to wildlife trapped from tomato fields or walnut orchards with conventional field edges. Similar to earlier published work conducted on produce farms in central coastal California (Kilonzo et al., 2013) deer mice were the most commonly trapped wildlife in these agricultural systems. These wild rodents had a very low occurrence of E. coli O157:H7, Salmonella, and non-O157 STEC. In contrast to this low prevalence of bacterial pathogens, around 24 to 25% of mostly deer mice from walnut orchards were shedding Cryptosporidium and Giardia, but the low levels of (oo)cysts in these positive fecal samples prevented DNA confirmation as to the human infectivity of these genotypes of protozoal parasites. Prior work (Kilonzo et al., 2017) determined that about half of the genotypes of Cryptosporidium from deer mice trapped on California produce farms appear to be human infective, but the Giardia being shed by deer mice does not appear to be human infective (Sellers et al., 2018).
Citations:
Kilonzo C., X. Li, E.J. Vivas, M.T. Jay-Russell, K.L. Fernandez and E.R. Atwill. 2013. Fecal shedding of zoonotic food-borne pathogens by wild rodents in a major agricultural region of the Central California Coast. Appl. Environ. Microbiol 79(20): 6337-6344. doi: 10.1128/AEM.01503-13.
Kilonzo, C., X. Li, T.Vodoz, C.Xiao, J.A. Chase, M. T. Jay-Russell, E.J. Vivas, and E.R. Atwill. 2017. Quantitative Shedding of Multiple Genotypes of Cryptosporidium and Giardia by Deer Mice (Peromyscus maniculatus) in a Major Agricultural Region on the California Central Coast. J. Food Prot. 80 (5): 819-828.
Sellers, L.A., R.F.Long, M.T.Jay-Russell, X.Li, E.R.Atwill, R.M.Engeman, and R.A.Baldwin. 2018. Impact of field-edge habitat on mammalian wildlife abundance, distribution, and vectored foodborne pathogens in adjacent crops. Crop Protection 108 (June) pp. 1-11.
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Preharvest Food Safety in Bangkok
Rob Atwill visited Assistant Professor Saharuetai Jeamsripong, Department of Veterinary Public Health, at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok in early February to finalize work on a preharvest oyster food safety project and to help launch a new effort on raw produce food safety among small and large retail vendors in the greater Bangkok area. Dr. Jeamsripong, in collaboration with scientists at WIFSS and the WCFS, are rapidly expanding the food safety programs at their Department of Veterinary Public Health. Dr. Jeamsripong is a PhD graduate from the graduate Group in Epidemiology from UC Davis where she worked with Michele Jay and Rob Atwill on in-field mechanisms of bacterial contamination of lettuce with funding from FDA.
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The native California shrub toyon, or Christmas berry, blooms with white flowers in a hedgerow planted behind Rachael Long and a tomato grower.
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Sellers, L.A., R.F. Long, M.T. Jay-Russell, X. Li, E.R. Atwill, R.M. Engeman, and R.A. Baldwin. 2018. Impact of field-edge habitat on mammalian wildlife abundance, distribution, and vectored foodborne pathogens in adjacent crops. Crop Protection 108 (June) pp. 1-11.
Highlights:
- Hedgerows were associated with greater wildlife abundance and diversity.
- Hedgerows did not generally yield greater wildlife incursion into field interiors.
- Hedgerows did not have any noticeable impact on foodborne pathogen prevalence.
- In tested crop systems, hedgerows did not increase human-wildlife conflict concerns.
Read more about the study at the UCCE San Joaquin blog.
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