Executive Summary
CPS-prioritized research has helped the industry evolve to understand that not all animal species are imminent threats to the safety of the product and the key to controlling contamination risks often lies with leveraging a more complete understanding of the biology of the animal and the growing environment.
Key Learnings
- A wide range of wild animals including insects, birds, amphibians, and reptiles can carry human pathogens and must be considered when conducting hazard analyses and risk assessments.
- Mitigating the potential risks from wild animal intrusions is about leveraging our understanding of the biology of the animal, i.e., contamination hazards within the environment, the animal’s movements relative to those hazards and the farm or facility, and the animal’s basic behaviors. Aggressive monitoring of fields and preharvest application of buffer zones have proven to be effective in mitigating risks for some types of animals.
- Concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), poultry production farms, and dairies are contamination hazards that can impact nearby fruit and vegetable fields. Windblown dust and bioaerosols from animal operations can carry human pathogens significant distances onto crops, soil, and open water sources. Likewise, run-off from animal operations into open water sources used for irrigation represents another risk for cross-contamination.