User-Friendly Microbial Risk Assessment Tool for California Produce Growers in Development
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An ongoing project aims to make food safety science more accessible and actionable for California produce growers through a user-friendly risk assessment tool that will assess the risks of production practices and provide possible mitigation measures. The work is led by University of California, Davis (UC Davis) Professor and researcher Alda Pires, Ph.D., D.V.M., M.P.V.M., and is supported by the Center for Produce Safety (CPS).
The tool will leverage existing science about the environmental and geographical influences of produce farming on potential foodborne illness outbreaks caused by Escherichia coli. The initial model of the tool will be designed for growers in the Salinas Valley, California growing region—an important produce production area that has been the source of recent, significant foodborne illness outbreaks—but Dr. Pires and her team intend to modify the tool for use in the California Imperial Valley as well. Additionally, the tool will be specific to E. coli because the pathogen has been the cause of many of the foodborne illness outbreaks originating from Salinas Valley.
Because each growing region is unique, the tool must consider different areas’ geographies, water resources, soils and agricultural practices; however, it is possible that the tool may be applicable to other production regions with landscapes and climates comparable to Salinas Valley or the Imperial Valley.
The researchers’ goal is to design an online, easy-to-use tool that will draw from both publicly available and proprietary data on landscape, land use, and weather-related factors. Users will enter details about their unique farming operations, such as their water resources, irrigation, crops, soil types and amendments, management practices, nearby agricultural activities, and location. From this, the tool will to produce results in a visual and simple-to-understand format, including an individual microbial risk score and an actionable list of mitigation measures.
When beginning the project, the researchers consulted stakeholders from the produce and beef cattle industries to guide the development of the quantitative microbial risk assessment model (QRMA) behind the tool, and to ensure the results have real-world applications. The California Agricultural Neighbors project—a joint public health protection effort launched by the California Department of Food and Agriculture and the Monterey County Farm Bureau in response to a 2021 E. coli outbreak—will also be consulted.
QMRA model development is currently underway, with the researchers undergoing an online literature review of contamination pathways and compiling datasets. The researchers have also created a demonstration computer dashboard, which includes a risk gauge with a needle pointing to “low,” “medium,” or “high” risk potential, although the final dashboard is still being designed.
Co-principal investigators on the project include Beatriz Martinez-Lopez, Ph.D.; Gabriele Maier, Ph.D.; and Erin DiCaprio, Ph.D., all with UC Davis.
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