To help meet the need for professionals to protect our food supply, the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and the College of Veterinary Medicine at N.C. State University have joined forces to create the North Carolina Alliance for Food Safety.

The alliance takes a multi-disciplinary approach to food safety through research, teaching and Extension, involving departments in both colleges, as well as other colleges at N.C. State.

The program includes a food safety minor for graduate students, believed to be the first of its kind. A distance-education food safety certification program helps train food-processing workers in the principles of the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) system, its prerequisite programs and scientific bases.

Research runs from the most basic to applied, in such areas as risk assessment, food biosecurity and the molecular basis for Salmonella virulence. Researchers from university departments work with those in other agencies to make our food supply even safer.

Extension efforts provide training and practical information from the university to those on the front line of food safety. The Food Animal Residue Avoidance Databank (FARAD), based in the College of Veterinary Medicine, provides food-animal producers and veterinarians with information necessary to keep drug and chemical residues out of food-animal products.

The Southern Regional Fresh Produce Food Safety Program provides training to help produce growers prevent microbial contamination of their fruits and vegetables from farm to table.

The alliance hopes to increase collaboration with other institutions in the University of North Carolina system. Such collaboration is vital to North Carolina industries and consumers.

 

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