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WIFSS @ work, March 2008, Enewsletter

  Enewsletter, March 2008
  Section Links: Outreach | Conferences | Research | Announcements

  bullet  OUTREACH

Safe-Handling of Fruits and Vegetables (submitted by Linda J. Harris)
WIFSS staff Linda J. Harris, Juliana M. Ruzante, and KC Nguyen collaborated with Christine M. Bruhn and Amy E. Li-Cohen (Department of Food Science and Technology, UC Davis), to update a brochure on safe-handling of fruits and vegetables. The Center for Produce Safety helped support production of the brochure and an accompanying magnet. Nearly 14,000 brochures and magnets have been distributed to ANR Family, Nutrition, and Consumer Science Advisors in 18 counties for use in nutrition training programs and distribution at farmers markets and other public events. Both brochures are available to download at the WIFSS web site:

Food Safety Tips for Your Edible Home Garden (submitted by Linda J. Harris)
Trevor Suslow (Department of Plant Sciences, UC Davis), Linda J. Harris, and KC Nguyen collaborated on development of a brochure that outlines steps the home gardener can use to reduce food safety risks in the home garden. The Center for Produce Safety helped support production of the brochure which is available to download at the WIFSS web site:

Recommendations on Washing Bagged Salads (submitted by Linda J. Harris)
UC Davis CE Specialist Dr. Christine Bruhn and Linda J. Harris participated in an industry/government/academic panel tasked with reviewing recent research and developing guidelines for handling prewashed bagged salads before consumption in food service establishments or the home. The guidelines and background materials used to prepare the guidelines are presented in the following publication: Palumbo, M.S. et. al. 2007 and Trends Food Prot. 27:892-898. The recommendations have been published on the California Department of Public Health web site:

Restaurant Lemon Slices (submitted by Linda J. Harris)
In late February 2008, a number of news stories began to appear across the country on the sanitation of lemon slices in restaurant beverages. The stories were based on a December 2007 publication in the Journal of Environmental Health. Linda J. Harris collaborated with Michelle D. Danyluk (University of Florida), Mickey Parish (University of Maryland), and Randy Worobo (Cornell University) to prepare a response to the highly-flawed article. The response is available at the WIFSS web site:

WIFSS Continues Agroterrorism & Food Systems Disaster Preparedness Training (submitted by Jill Woodard)
WIFSS continues agroterrorism and food systems disaster preparedness training throughout the State of California and nationally. WIFSS received three awards effective October 1, 2007 that allow continuation of this effort through delivery of our Agroterrorism six-course curriculum from Eastern Kentucky University ($250,000), Department of Homeland Security-FEMA ($700,000), and California Office of Homeland Security ($150,000). As of February 2008, we will be delivering a total of 67 courses from the WIFSS Agroterrorism Curriculum, nationally, this year. 31 courses were delivered in 2007 so this is a tremendous increase. Effective agroterrorism response teams have been developed in over 15 states, with plans for continued training in an additional ten states by the end of the year. Class composition is focused on community front line responders and a wide range of individuals from local agencies, private industry and those playing a role in the rebuilding efforts, resulting in the ability to cross occupational boundaries with a unified goal.

WIFSS also received funding from FDA ($875,000/3 yrs) to develop rapid response teams. We have had two planning meetings to date, with a third planned for June. Course development is starting to take shape. Pilot states will be identified possibly by this fall, at which time the project will begin to move quickly.

There is lots of work in our future and we are extremely grateful to everyone who has made our curriculum such an outstanding success.

Preventing Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) (submitted by Michael Payne)
Computer modeling suggest that for every hour a FMD outbreak goes undetected, it would cost the industry and taxpayers more than one million dollars in destroyed animals, lost product, and clean-up costs. Working with CDFA, WIFSS has mailed two highly accessible teaching tools to each of California’s 2000 dairies. The first, a laminated-poster with full-color photographs, English and Spanish text describes what FMD looks like in dairy cattle. The second, a comic-book novella, describes in Spanish what would happen to the State’s dairy industry (and dairy employees’ livelihood) in the event of an unchecked outbreak of FMD. The poster and novella were accompanied by a cover-letter signed by the State’s Ag Secretary, State Veterinarian and CEO of each of the State’s major dairy organizations. Both the poster and novella are available to download at WIFSS web site:

WIFSS Facilitates Planning for Emergency Animal Disposal (submitted by Michael Payne)
 The 2006 heat and humidity wave resulted in some 20,000 dairy animal mortalities, temporarily exceeding the state’s rendering facilities. With leadership and funding from the California Integrated Waste Management Board and the California Department of Food and Agriculture, a remarkably diverse 72-member workgroup encompassing industry, academia, and regulatory agencies have been exploring a variety of solutions including expansion of landfill permits for emergency livestock disposal, mutual aid agreements, and on-farm composting of livestock mortalities. For more detailed information, contact Michael Payne at mpayne@ucdavis.edu.

WIFSS Provides Kern County with Technical Background on Manure Pathogen Regulation (submitted by Michael Payne)
In the wake of the Fall 2006 E. coli outbreaks in fresh produce, regulatory agencies explored whether or not new fresh produce regulations were needed. At the request of the Kern County Agricultural Commissioner, WIFSS provided science-based consultation to technical questions including “Should manure use be banned altogether on human food crops?” and “Do some agricultural commodities (i.e., wine or fruit juices) have a natural resistance to E. coli?” Partly, as a result of this collaboration, the Kern County Board of Supervisors passed a resolution supporting the California Leafy Green Marketing Order, the new comprehensive set of standards under which more than 98% of the State’s leafy green products are produced.

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  bullet  CONFERENCES

National Food Safety Research Symposium for the Treecrop Industry (submitted by Linda J. Harris)
On October 17 and 18, 2007 WIFSS and the UC Davis Postharvest Research and Information Center (Dr. Jim Gorny) hosted a National Food Safety Research Symposium for the Treecrop industry. The meeting objectives were: 1) To identify data gaps and prioritize commodity and regionally-specific research that would help develop appropriate pre-and post-harvest standards and critical limits, and 2) To develop a network and platform for ongoing communication and coordination of research efforts among the participants. A first draft of the data gaps was summarized and shared with participants after the meeting. The next meeting is scheduled for May 7, 2008 in Las Vegas, NV and will focus on refining these data gaps and identifying research priorities. For more information on this meeting, contact Jim Thuerwachter at jthuerwachter@ucdavis.edu

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  bullet  RESEARCH

Evaluation of the impact of pre-inoculation growth conditions on the behavior of E. coli O157:H7 inoculated onto Romaine lettuce plants and cut leaf surfaces (submitted by Linda J. Harris)
Dr. Mysore Sudarshana, WIFSS Research Scientist, Ms. Sanhita Bandyopadhyay, Junior Specialist, Dr. Anne-Laure Moyne, Postdoctoral scholar and Chris Theofel, M.S. student are working to evaluate the impact of pre-inoculation growth conditions on the behavior of E. coli O157:H7 inoculated onto Romaine lettuce plants and cut leaf surfaces. These studies, funded by the California Lettuce Research Board and Fresh Express, are aimed at understanding factors that impact E. coli survival in the pre- and post-harvest lettuce environment so that studies may be more reliably designed and data from separate studies may be more reliably compared. Abstracts have been submitted for presentation at the International Association for Food Protection (IAFP) Annual meeting in Columbus, Ohio August 2008.

Develop a research project that will evaluate the risk of E. coli O157:H7 contamination of produce from sheep that graze crop residue in Imperial Valley, CA (submitted by Rob Atwill)
The California Farm Bureau Federation has asked Rob Atwill (WIFSS/School of Veterinary Medicine, UCD/UCCE) and Trevor Suslow (Department of Plant Sciences, UCD/UCCE) to develop a research project that will evaluate the risk of E. coli O157:H7 contamination of produce from sheep that graze crop residue in Imperial Valley, CA. We have asked Bruce Hoar, livestock health professor (School of Veterinary Medicine, UCD), to join the effort. A scope of work and budget have been submitted and we are awaiting Farm Bureau’s decision.

Proposal to assist the California and Arizona leafy greens industry analyze their microbiological testing data (submitted by Rob Atwill)
At the request of Interim Executive Director Devon Zagory and the Executive Committee of the Center for Produce Safety, Rob Atwill was asked on behalf of WIFSS to develop a proposal to assist the California and Arizona leafy greens industry analyze their microbiological testing data collected during the 2007 monitoring year. Drs. Atwill and Zagory met with various industry partners on January 18th and discussed industry concerns regarding data confidentiality and goals of the analysis. Dr. Atwill recently briefed Bonnie Fernandez-Fenaroli, the incoming Executive Director of the Center for Produce Safety regarding the project goals. This project has been a top priority for the produce industry and the Center for Produce Safety. Once the industry’s concerns are addressed and a scope of work agreed upon, data analysis can quickly proceed.

CREES-USDA Grants (submitted by Rob Atwill)
In order to assist the produce and livestock industry in Monterey and San Benito counties, California, address food safety concerns regarding E. coli O157:H7, Robert Mandrell (ARS-USDA) and Rob Atwill (WIFSS/School of Veterinary Medicine, UCD) are conducting a large four-year research project that will help identify the primary vertebrate sources, modes of transmission, and recommended good agricultural practices for reducing the occurrence of this bacteria in the produce production environment. This project is being funded by two CSREES-USDA grants and would not be possible without numerous collaborators at various public agencies (CDPH, CDFG, NRCS), agricultural groups (CCA, WGA, CFBF), academics/outreach faculty (UCD, UCCE), and land owners. We are in the planning phase of the project, focused on enrolling land owners and developing our technical procedures.

Characterization of Salmonella isolated from raw almonds (submitted by Linda J. Harris)
Anika Singla, M.S. student is using pulsed field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) to distinguish among multiple isolates of the same serovar of Salmonella recovered from a seven-year survey of almonds. A collaboration with the Almond Board of California, the original study has tested over 12,000 almond samples with over 100 separate isolates of Salmonella. The Salmonella isolates have been characterized by antibiotic-resistance profile but PFGE has helped to further distinguish individual strains. These data are useful in understanding potential routes of contamination of almonds. The first five years of the study were previously published. Uesugi, A. R., M. D. Danyluk, R. E. Mandrell and L. J. Harris. 2007. J. Food Prot. 70:1784-1789. An abstract of the current work has been submitted for presentation at the IAFP meeting in August 2008.

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  bullet  ANNOUNCEMENTS

Bonnie Fernandez-Fenaroli named as the new Executive Director for the Center for Produce Safety
WIFSS welcomes Bonnie Fernandez-Fenaroli, the new executive director for the Center for Produce Safety at UC Davis, co-located at the WIFSS office building. Ms. Fernandez-Fenaroli previously served as the executive director of the California Wheat Commission for the past 15 years. For more information about Ms. Fernandez-Fenaroli and her new role at the Center, visit College of Agricultural & Environmental Sciences announcement article:

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