Dairy products are an important source of nutrition in Senegal, but preventing foodborne illness in local supply chains is challenging to maintain across the system of small farms, aggregation sites and artisanal processing facilities. Two papers published by researchers working with the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Food Safety (FSIL) highlight the challenges and potential solutions to increasing the food safety of milk production and processing in Senegal.

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Small-scale poultry farming is a major source of income for many rural households in Kenya and contributes to household food security and nutrition. However, preventing transmission of foodborne pathogens such as Salmonella and Campylobacter is a persistent challenge in poultry production systems around the world. Strengthening food safety requires not only the adoption of safer handling practices but also aligning those interventions with gender roles, responsibilities and risks. A new study highlights the significant role played by women and youth in small-scale poultry production in Kenya and identifies key activities to increase their success in reducing foodborne illness.

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Growing up in Ethiopia, Woubit Abebe (formerly Abdela) had always been a star student and, as a result, found herself with several possible career paths. She had only one requirement for her future job: She would apply her knowledge to help others in whatever way she could.

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From its inception, the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Food Safety (FSIL) has sought to engage and empower women in research projects to increase access to safe, nutritious diets.  Women are significant contributors in agricultural production, food processing and household food preparation, which all present strategic opportunities to prevent the spread of foodborne pathogens. Despite composing 43 percent of the global agricultural workforce and up to 60 percent in parts of Africa and Asia,  women often have less access to land, technology, financial services, education and markets than men; fewer than 20 percent of the world’s landowners are women, and female farmers receive only 5 percent of extension services globally. FSIL’s focus on food safety gaps in perishable, nutritious foods — including dairy, poultry, fish, and produce — also provides an opportunity to address the gender gap. Too often, gender is incorporated into research for development only by disaggregating data and indicators by gender or holding trainings for women. This is a great start, but it is unlikely to be transformative.

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Aditya Khanal originally hails from a pocket of Nepal where citrus — in particular, mandarins and sweet oranges — grew plentifully. As a young boy on his grandfather’s farm, he remembers the local producers having a surplus of fruit but lacking the proper channels to sell it outside their small village.

Witnessing as a child that lost earning potential and its repercussions for the farmers’ families had a lasting effect on him. It was then that Khanal first recognized the importance of market connections in the world of agriculture. Today, he works as an agricultural and applied economist who studies the complex interplay between producers and consumers.

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Those of us at the consumer end of the food production chain don’t necessarily think about food safety much. Sure, we know to cook chicken thoroughly and never let potato salad sit out too long in the heat. We read the occasional news story about a foodborne illness outbreak and remind ourselves to wash our lettuce and scrub our cantaloupes extra carefully.

But the overall, exceptional safety of our food supply comes thanks to hard work, research, data analysis, education and outreach by people all along the food production chain. At Purdue, food safety researchers are deeply involved in this process at every step. Their work helps ensure that the chicken on our plates, the herbs in our spice racks and the milk in our children’s glasses won’t make us sick.

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Categorizing Purdue University animal science graduate student Leah Thompson is a challenging proposition.

“I joke that I’m grossly mislabeled, because I’m an animal scientist working on a project in Cambodia that is all about vegetables,” she says.

Furthermore, her role in that project largely focuses on understanding women’s roles, knowledge and attitudes about food safety. This pivot was spurred by an offer from Purdue Professor of Animal Sciences—and her former undergraduate advisor—Paul Ebner to return to Purdue to pursue a Ph.D. focused on international food safety research and outreach. Ebner had recently been named co-Principal Investigator (PI) on a project funded by the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Food Safety (FSIL) to reduce foodborne illness spread by vegetables sold through traditional markets in Cambodia.

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When Purdue professor of animal sciences, Paul Ebner, reviews data from his team’s surveys of food safety knowledge and attitudes in Cambodia, his first priority is using the results to develop effective food safety outreach activities for vegetable farmers, distributors, and vendors. However, because his project is supported by federal funding, he is also required to comply with mandates for open and accessible data. These federal directives aim to provide evidence for scientists and decision-makers around the world and fuel entrepreneurship, innovation and scientific discovery.

Ebner’s project is one of six supported by the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Food Safety (FSIL), based at Purdue University and Cornell University. Funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the projects address policies and practices to reduce the burden of foodborne disease and malnutrition in target Feed the Future countries.

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In Cambodia, a multinational research team has piloted a leadership and food safety workshop that empowers female farmers to collaborate and take collective action to strengthen food safety in their communities.

In August, two dozen female vegetable farmers and staff members from Banteay Srei, a local nonprofit focused on women’s self-empowerment, participated in trainings held in the Cambodian provinces of Siem Reap and Battambang. During the day-long workshops, women worked together to identify their personal strengths and conduct risk assessments of the vegetable value chain, learning how their leadership and collective action can improve food safety in their communities.

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An international, multidisciplinary research team has launched a new project to improve the safety of fresh produce in Nepal by harnessing market-based approaches that integrate consumer and producer studies.

With a policy focus that prioritized food security and government investments in related areas, Nepal has experienced relatively higher productivity of some agricultural crops and lower poverty rates. Yet, 36% of children under five years old are chronically malnourished, and food production is only one side of the equation, says Aditya Khanal, associate professor of agricultural economics at Tennessee State University (TSU) and principal investigator (PI) on the new study funded by FSIL.

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