New Mexico Chile Task Force

Home > Projects > GAPs Project > Closing Gaps in Food Safety 

Closing Gaps in Food Safety

A growing number of producers realize that consumer concerns and retailer issues will intensify. These producers are now looking at ways to reduce microbial risks on the farm.

These concerns and issues point to produce associated outbreaks that can adversely affect business:

To help growers in their efforts, a group of universities are working together and have developed GAPs, or Good Agricultural Practices. The voluntary program provides growers with general guidelines that can be tailored to their own operation, says Dr. Bob Gravani, a Cornell University food scientist and GAPs project leader. It is being funded by grants from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration.

"We want to raise the bar and if there are any practices that are being done that could lead to contamination of fruits and vegetables with pathogens, we want to minimize those risks," Gravani says.

Food safety has changed over the years, and a whole host of microbes seem to be prompting food safety scares with increasing frequency--organisms such as Salmonella and E. coli O157:H7. Since 1987, three-quarters of those outbreaks were related to domestically grown produce, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

"When there's a produce problem, it can certainly undermine all of the 5-A-Day programs that are working to increase fresh fruit and vegetable consumption," Gravani says. "It can be devastating from a lawsuit standpoint and just from business losses."

GAPs were developed with input from researchers representing a number of disciplines, including horticulture, vocational agriculture and food science. But more importantly, Gravani and his group sought grower input to determine whether the GAPs they were developing were even applicable or feasible on the farm. After all, every farm is different, and they wanted the GAPs to be flexible.

"We put together focus groups of growers as well as academics and others with an interest in the area," Gravani says. "We gleaned from those things that farmers really thought would work."

These concerns and issues point to produce associated outbreaks that can adversely affect business:

To help growers in their efforts, a group of universities are working together and have developed GAPs, or Good Agricultural Practices. The voluntary program provides growers with general guidelines that can be tailored to their own operation, says Dr. Bob Gravani, a Cornell University food scientist and GAPs project leader. It is being funded by grants from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration.

"We want to raise the bar and if there are any practices that are being done that could lead to contamination of fruits and vegetables with pathogens, we want to minimize those risks," Gravani says.

Food safety has changed over the years, and a whole host of microbes seem to be prompting food safety scares with increasing frequency--organisms such as Salmonella and E. coli O157:H7. Since 1987, three-quarters of those outbreaks were related to domestically grown produce, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

"When there's a produce problem, it can certainly undermine all of the 5-A-Day programs that are working to increase fresh fruit and vegetable consumption," Gravani says. "It can be devastating from a lawsuit standpoint and just from business losses."

GAPs were developed with input from researchers representing a number of disciplines, including horticulture, vocational agriculture and food science. But more importantly, Gravani and his group sought grower input to determine whether the GAPs they were developing were even applicable or feasible on the farm. After all, every farm is different, and they wanted the GAPs to be flexible.

"We put together focus groups of growers as well as academics and others with an interest in the area," Gravani says. "We gleaned from those things that farmers really thought would work."