Milestones for Food Safety Program in China
Chris Brunner, June 26, 2015
NAU administrative team and UC Davis WIFSS team members share sunny break at two day meeting. Back Row: Bennie Osburn, Wei Zuo, Yingjun Liu, Jing Zhu, Xinbin Chen Front Row: Mandy Arens, Wei Wei, Hongsheng Zhang, Jing Zhu, John Angelos
An administrative team from Nanjing Agricultural University (NAU) was in Davis June 21 and 22 to meet with leaders of UC Davis, the School of Veterinary Medicine, and the Western Institute for Food Safety and Security (WIFSS), to review, and discuss the next steps, of the agreement for a joint One Health Center for Food Safety in Nanjing.
The delegation from NAU included Chancellor Wei Zuo, and Hongsheng Zhang, director of Office of International Relations, Yingjun Liu, director in the Office of the Chancellor, Jing Zhu, dean in the College of Economics and Management, and Wei Wei, chief coordinator for international programs.
Tony Turkovich of Button and Turkovich Ranch explains tomato production to Chancellor Wei Zuo and Yingjun Liu
During their two day visit the NAU delegation visited a Northern California almond ranch and the Button and Turkovich Ranch in Winters where they learned about the planting, irrigation, harvest and production processes for nut and tomato crops.
The delegation met with UC Davis Provost and Executive Vice-Chancellor Ralph Hexter to talk about the future capacity building through graduate education. Earlier they discussed the working agreement with NAU-UC Davis for undergraduate and graduate programs with Adrienne Martin, interim vice provost of Global Affairs, and Jan Hopmans, associate vice provost for Global Affairs. Michael Lairmore, dean of the School of Veterinary Medicine, spoke with the delegation about future directions of the One Health Center for Food Safety at NAU.
Bennie Osburn, director for Outreach and Training at WIFSS, and Xinbin Chen, director of veterinary oncology at the School of Veterinary Medicine, hosted the afternoon session which included a discussion about blended learning with Heather Johnson, an instructional systems designer at WIFSS. John Angelos, associate professor, veterinary medicine – infectious diseases, WIFSS, described a curriculum for training using a One Health approach to food safety that is being developed by WIFSS.
The visit from Chancellor Zuo and his delegation is an important milestone marking the progress of the working agreement between NAU and UC Davis to plan and establish a One Health Center for Food Safety in Nanjing. The agreement has been underway for a little more than one year and during this time NAU and UC Davis have been working on the first phases of capacity building through sponsorship of symposia and conferences. Three symposia involving faculty from both institutions exchanging information in areas of common research and graduate educational interests took place in the first year. In addition, three undergraduate and graduate student conferences at UC Davis were held to introduce students to the concept of One Health in food safety. During the second year the program will continue to develop and implement the graduate programs. WIFSS is developing a unique food safety training curriculum that uses a One Health approach that will be the first of its kind in Asia. The ultimate goal is to have a regional center with 75 multidisciplinary faculty working together to address food safety related issues in Asia.