Co-management of Conservation and Food Safety
Co-management involves managing the production environment to achieve multiple objectives including food safety, environmental protection, and sustainability. Through increased understanding of the value of conservation practices and how they might represent a food safety risk (though habitat creation), production managers can better determine how to manage the risks and achieve joint objectives.
Guides to Multiple Resources
Co-management of Food Safety and Sustainability
Source: UCCE | Links to a broad collection of resource guides for management practices (cover crops, vegetated buffers, sediment basins, etc.), including the advantages and disadvantages in considering where and how to use them in fields.
Produce Safety Project
Source: Georgetown University and PEW | Pew worked with Georgetown University on the Produce Safety Project from 2008 to 2010. The Produce Safety Project addressed a variety of threats to the nation’s food supply. These included preventing contamination of domestically produced fruits and vegetables, ensuring the safety of imported foods and improving the surveillance systems that alert consumers to food-borne illness outbreaks.
Food Safety Resources
Source: Wild Farm Alliance | Links to webinars, guides for farmers, guides for food safety audits, and examples of habitat destruction related to food safety concerns, and latest research findings and references.
Online Class
Balancing food safety and sustainability – opportunities for co-management
Source: UCCE | This free online course will help someone understand the purpose of common sustainability practices used in agriculture and to develop management strategies to balance food safety and sustainability objectives related to implementing these practices. It also provides guidance for access to resources.
Farm Guides and Articles
A Farmer’s Guide to Food Safety and Conservation
Source: CAFF & Wild Farm Alliance | This guide covers major sources of human pathogens in the environment and vectors of possible crop contamination associated with leafy greens and fresh vegetables.
Training Scenarios for USDA and Third Party Auditors on the Co-management of Food Safety and Conservation as well as Small and Mid-Size Farm Concerns
Source: Wild Farm Alliance/ CAFF | Specific examples of food safety audit scenarios that pertain to co-management and how they can be handled.
Food Safety Considerations for Conservation Planners: A field guide for practitioners July 2009
Source: RCD Monterey Co. | This guide covers major sources of human pathogens in the environment and vectors of possible crop contamination associated with leafy greens and fresh vegetables. Possible risks as well as potential ways to reduce crop contamination through water, air and animal contact are discussed.
Using Wetlands to Remove Microbial Pollutants from Farm Discharge Water
Source: UCANR | This article reviews the performance of six different wetlands for removing microbial contamination, discusses food safety considerations, and identifies design and management factors that need to be considered for agricultural applications.
Food safety and environmental quality impose conflicting demands on Central Coast growers
Source: Beretti and Stuart | Growers face pressures from multiple fronts. This article speaks to the demands on growers to produce safe produce and to be a stakeholder in the environment. Results of grower surveys are shown, as well as ways to reconcile multiple demands are discussed.
Reconciling Food Safety and Environmental Protection: A literature review
Source: RCD Monterey Co. | A summary of the findings of scientific literature as it related to the association between food safety and the environment as of Oct 2006.
Co-Management FORUM 2014
Source: UC ANR | How diverse panels from a cross-section of growers, government, researchers and conservationists come together to discuss co-management of food safety and conservation.