Levon Esters (left) and Haley Oliver (right) at Purdue University

The Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Food Safety (FSIL), based at Purdue University and Cornell University and funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), has launched two new food safety research projects in Nepal and Nigeria. The research partnerships, led by U.S. based Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs), will address policies and practices that reduce the burden of foodborne disease and malnutrition. The projects are the culmination of a competitive Request for Applications (RFA) process that recruited experts at MSIs to address gaps in food safety research in Africa and Asia.

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The Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Food Safety (FSIL) has announced a funding opportunity, as part of Feed the Future, aimed at reducing foodborne illness in Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean through research projects led by U.S.-based Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs). This Request for Applications (RFA) will fund research to support data-driven food safety policies and practices to address microbial and chemical food hazards. It will also create new research partnerships led by MSIs, which will expand and strengthen U.S. capacity to meet global food safety and security challenges.

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Paul Ebner, Purdue professor of animal sciences, will co-lead a project to decrease risk posed from foodborne pathogens in Cambodia. Ebner and the co-lead, Jessie Vipham, assistant professor of global food systems and nutrition at Kansas State University, received a grant from the USAID Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Food Safety, managed by Purdue and Cornell Universities. Ebner, who has extensive experience in bringing food safety resources overseas, said the project’s goal is to reduce foodborne illnesses in Cambodia.

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The Department of Agricultural Sciences at Texas State has received a $700,000 grant from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to enhance farm-to-table food safety in fish and chicken in Bangladesh.

The project is funded by USAID as part of Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Food Safety (FSIL), the U.S. government’s global hunger and food security initiative. FSIL is administered through Purdue University and Cornell University.

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The University of Georgia has received a $700,000 grant from the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Food Safety to help improve food safety in Senegal’s rapidly growing dairy industry.

The project is part of a larger $2.9 million parent grant from the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Food Safety, based at Cornell and Purdue Universities and funded by USAID as part of Feed the Future, the U.S. government’s global hunger and food security initiative.

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MANHATTAN, Kan. – A Kansas State University researcher says that a $760,000 grant from the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Food Safety will boost efforts to protect the safety of food across the country and world.

Jessie Vipham, an assistant professor in K-State’s Department of Animal Sciences and Industry, will lead the 3 ½ year project that begins in November and will involve experts in food safety, molecular biology, bioinformatics, statistics and social sciences.

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The Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Food Safety, co-located at Cornell and Purdue University, has announced $2.9 million in grants for research projects to improve food safety and prevent foodborne illness in Bangladesh, Cambodia, Kenya and Senegal.

The competitively funded, 3 ½-year projects will focus on identifying knowledge gaps, enhancing local capacity for food safety research, and translating research into improved food-handling policies and practices.

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Haley Oliver, associate professor in food science, was recently honored with Purdue Agriculture’s 2019 Corinne Alexander Spirit of the Land-Grant Mission Award.  An expert in retail food safety with an international reputation for her lab’s work on the pathogen Listeria monocytogenes, Oliver is the principle investigator and director of the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Food Safety (FSIL), established through a $10 million grant from United States Agency for International Development (USAID). FSIL will increase food safety awareness, support local research efforts to improve food safety and disseminate information from the research in Bangladesh, Kenya, Ethiopia, Senegal and Cambodia.

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Foodborne illnesses affect 600 million people around the world each year, causing 420,000 deaths. According to the World Health Organization, more than a quarter of these deaths are children younger than 5.

Cornell is teaming with Purdue University – a partnership of land-grant universities from New York and Indiana – to establish the first Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Food Safety, which aims to solve some of the world’s greatest challenges in agriculture and food insecurity.

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