Commodity groups emphasize gate-to-plate food safety with HACCP-based quality assurance programs

by SUSAN MANN

Having to rely on his memory, though, is a thing of the past. Weitzel, who participated in the first round of a pilot project to fine tune the national quality assurance program for dairy, had an alarm installed as part of a time-temperature recorder to measure bulk tank cooling and storage times and temperatures. The device also lets farmers know if wash cycles of the system, including the pipeline, were done properly.

Before, Weitzel would sometimes forget to turn the cooler on until all the cows had been milked. "You didn't lose a tank of milk, but it sure wasn't good for quality," he says.

"Now we can see that light from the barn. It goes on as soon as the milk's picked up and the milk cooler has been washed. The only time it is on is when the first milk goes in until it's been cooled." The Weitzels have opted to use a light as an alarm but producers can also get alarms that are audible or that have auto dialers that will phone their cell phone or pager to tell them there is a problem.

Dairy is one of many commodities that are either starting, fine-tuning or have already implemented on-farm food safety programs, based on a preventative system, now recognized worldwide, known as Hazardous Analysis Critical Control Points. (See sidebar.)

The reasons given for starting the programs include pressure from retailers, overseas customers or consumers, or a desire in the industry to be proactive in the food-safety area. There is growing awareness about food safety issues, and the farm sector is following the packing and processing industry, which has already installed HACCP in its facilities. The trend in food production is gate-to-plate food safety programs.

The federal government has made money available to national associations for such programs through its Canada Agriculture Rural Development Fund. The Ontario government, through its Healthy Futures for Agriculture program, has approved more than $6 million in spending on the meat, milk and horticultural industries, creating a total public and private sector investment of more than $28 million in food safety and quality projects. It's estimated that 90 per cent of the commodities produced in Canada are part of these on-farm food safety programs.

Dairy Farmers of Ontario (DFO) began its quality assurance pilot project last summer on the farms of all board members. Ken Weitzel's wife, Sharon, is the board member representing farmers in Huron and Perth (Region 10). They milk 34 cows on their farm near Stratford in Perth County.

The second phase of the pilot project began this winter with the chairs of all Dairy Producer Committees, or their alternates, participating. As part of the program, farmers have to install a time-temperature recorder; develop farm-specific standard operating procedures for animal identification, livestock medicines management, pre-milking, milking and post-milking; get a livestock medicines certificate by taking a course; and test their water to ensure it's drinkable. Eventually, standard operating procedures will be needed for medicated feeds, pesticide use relating to crops and farm help training.

Currently, the time-temperature recorders range in price from $720 to $1,500, excluding the cost of installation and alarms. Those in the pilot projects didn't have to pay for the devices in the pilots, but will have to buy one when the program is introduced for all farmers. Though the system may seem expensive, it more than pays for itself the first time it saves a bulk tank of milk, says George MacNaughton, DFO's manager of farm policies and field services.

The new quality assurance program for dairy focuses on prevention and early intervention if a problem does occur. It's basically an enhancement of the existing raw milk quality program. But while current and past programs focused on identifying problems after milk had been marketed and on tracing problems back to farms, the new program's goal is to market top-quality raw milk consistently by identifying and correcting problems as soon as they occur.

Even though it may seem like farmers will have to totally change the way they do things, most farmers already have correct procedures in place. They'll just have to add periodic checks to verify them.

Good production practices
While DFO is busy fine-tuning its program, Chicken Farmers of Ontario (CFO) has had its HACCP-based On Farm Food Safety Assurance Program, developed by Chicken Farmers of Canada, for about three years. The program is basically a collection of good production practices, says John Neil, CFO's on-farm audit supervisor. This fall, the first chicken farmer in Ontario completed the program's audit portion. The program is currently voluntary, but the CFO board has fully embraced it and has resolved to make it mandatory for all farmers at some point.

The program covers the entire production cycle from cleaning out after the previous production cycle to the shipment of the birds from the current crop. "Probably the single largest change that producers have to do is keep these records," he says.

CFO board member John Slot says it is based on three principles - "Say what you do, which is the production manual; do it, which is the record keeping; and the third part, which I think is the most important part, is prove it. We're in the final stages of the third part, which is the auditing."

Two commodity groups that are just about to start pilot projects this spring and summer are horticulture and beef. In the case of horticulture, a pilot project on a minimum of 20 farms will be used as a test site to implement the voluntary, on-farm food safety guidelines developed by the Canadian Horticultural Council. The results of the pilot will be used to develop a province-wide food safety program for growers. Crops involved will be fresh market asparagus, strawberries, carrots, onions, field tomatoes, potatoes, cole crops, apples and lettuce.

"Growers are more and more concerned about being able to prove that they are using good practices in getting their produce to the consumer," explains Stewart McCann, general manager of Agricultural Integrated Management Services, which is a partner in the development of the project. The other partners are the Ontario Fruit and Vegetable Growers' Association and the Ontario Potato Board.

Increasing emphasis is being placed on food safety protocols by consumers and retailers, notes McCann. "There are initiatives underway by different retailers, such as Safeway, to have a system of documentation in place to show the production practices and how the food is being produced." The biggest thing retailers are looking for now is some sort of trace-back mechanism, he adds.

Exportability advantage
Among the first commodity groups to get involved with food safety was the Canadian Cattlemen's Association (CCA) with its Quality Starts Here program, which mainly provided educational materials for beef farmers. Recently, the CCA contracted an Alberta veterinarian to pull out the on-farm food safety portion of the Quality Starts Here program to be used as the basis for the on-farm food safety program for producers. The new program is designed to be voluntary, nationally recognized and eventually accepted by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA). Ontario will carry out the pilot project for the cow-calf sector.

"The biggest advantage to national certification is exportability," says Mike McMorris, executive vice-president of the Ontario Cattlemen's Association (OCA). "That's great if southwestern Ontario has a program, but if it's not recognized by CFIA then the Japanese market is probably not going to recognize a southwestern Ontario program. They're looking for a Canadian-certified program."

The national beef program is now at the stage where it's ready to be handed over to provincial associations, such as OCA, to be made available to producers. This summer a pilot project for feedlots will begin in Alberta. One of the first groups to implement a program was Ontario Pork with its Canadian Quality Assurance program, introduced in 1995. It's voluntary for farmers but, depending on marketing arrangements, there are some processors in Ontario that demand the program be mandatory for farmers who market to them, explains Liz Samis, Ontario Pork director.

For farmers, there is an initial three-month period where they work through the procedures. Ontario Pork supplies participants with documentation, including a producer assessment form and educational binder. "You work through that and identify procedures you're doing on-farm," she says. "And you also make sure that the documentation is there."

Trained veterinarians are the validators for the Ontario Pork program. After the three-month period, the validators go to the farm and review the producer assessment form, the farmer's records and the feed sample, and ensure the permits and prescriptions are in order. "After the three months, they submit your records to the delivery agent, Ontario Pork, which reviews those records and issues the certificate," says Samis. "Producers are then able to carry on the standards of the program."

Samis says 1,907 farmers have been validated for CQA with estimated sales of 2.9 million hogs. There are about 4,200 hog farmers in Ontario.

"When you bring out a new program, farmers are always concerned that it doesn't add a lot of additional time and cost," she says. "We're trying to work through that diligently to make sure that isn't a problem."

One recent development among the livestock groups is to hire a consulting firm to come up with recommendations on how the groups can work together on some areas of their on-farm food safety programs. "We're trying to look at everything from producer training to validator training to database management," says Cathy Lennon, general manager of Ontario Sheep. "Hopefully we won't all create administrative duplication."

The goal of this project is to determine where the different commodities are at in the implementation of their programs and to make recommendations "for where we want to be in two years or five years," she explains.BF

New Ontario act aims to consolidate and modernize food safety measures

by SUSAN MANN

The idea is to use a scientific approach to determine "where can we do a better job of food safety to be prepared for the future," says Dr. Gwen Zellen, director of OMAFRA's food safety policy branch. "The legislation is one component and the regulations are another. Using a scientific approach is another way to understand what are the real risks and to make sure we're putting our resources in the highest risk areas."

The idea is to stay in front of things, she adds. "If you stay static, you'll be behind in no time."

The Act will enable the Ontario government, where necessary, to regulate commodities that may not have been provincially regulated before and to ensure safe food from field to fork. But currently there is no intention to regulate farms under the act, says Zellen.

As the bill moved through the Legislature, the Tory government continually emphasized the fact that Ontario's food supply is already one of the safest and best in the world. So why was this legislation needed?

Zellen says people's eating habits have changed over the years, there are more prepared, ready-to-eat foods and they are more widely distributed. Those factors, mixed in with continually evolving pathogens, have resulted in new food hazards. In addition, advances in science and technology will enable the province to improve the safety of food by identifying potential hazards and minimizing risks.

Ontario has to continue modifying and adapting its food safety system so it can maintain its good record on food safety in the province. "It's not just to stay on top," says Zellen. "Things are changing so quickly around the world that you want the framework to allow you to move where you need to next, and to address some the current weaknesses and inconsistencies."

In a nutshell, the act would modernize and consolidate the food safety requirements of: the Dead Animal Disposal Act, the Farm Products Grades and Sales Act, the Livestock and Livestock Products Act, the Meat Inspection Act and the Fish Inspection Act.

The food safety and quality requirements of these acts are being modified to include standards and requirements that will protect the public from food-borne hazards, enforcement actions to ensure compliance, and a timely and effective response to a food safety crisis, including the ability to trace the source of a contaminated food and to determine where it has been distributed.

Existing regulations were also consolidated. "For example, under the Meat Inspection Act there are regulations that are under review and those would be rewritten to be moved under this new act," Zellen explains. "It wouldn't be until some regulations are ready to be moved under the new act that it would actually be proclaimed."

Regulations within the new act are to be based on risk assessment. Instead of addressing problems after they occur, a risk-based system using scientific methods would be used to identify food safety risks along the entire food chain. After potential hazards have been identified, appropriate measures can be put in place to minimize risks before they pose a threat to public health.

Existing areas where there are regulations, such as for dairy and meat, are being worked on first. Inventories and base-line studies are being done for all food-related industries, including producers, processors, transporters and distributors. The studies would be used by the government to determine where the key risks are in the food system and identify at what stage they are introduced. New testing, monitoring and tracking methods help make this possible and would help determine the best method of eliminating the risk from the system.

One recently completed base-line study involved measuring the level of organisms on pork carcasses coming out of abattoirs. This study will help determine how effective the current system is. "It gives you a point to compare to in the future," says Zellen.

Before coming put with regulations, Zellen says they first have to understand the problems, determine the level of risks and figure out different ways of controlling them. "The last method that you would use would be regulation," she adds. "You'd find other ways to control the risks."

Among them are the on-farm food safety programs many commodities are now developing and implementing. BF

CFIA responsible for seeing that programs meet HACCP principles

by SUSAN MANN

The Agency is also involved in developing a recognition process. Commodities have to go through four major steps to get their program recognized by the Agency.

"Once these associations develop the program they've received funding for (through the federal government's Canada Agriculture Rural Development Fund),

then they can come to us with the written part of the program," which includes background documentation and the producer manual, says Martin Firth, manager of CFIA's policy and strategies division.

Agency staff will review the written documents and, if they meet criteria developed by the Agency and the provinces, they will acknowledge that the program is technically sound and meets the principles of HACCP.

After a program is deemed technically sound by the Agency, the next step is to develop a standardized written management program which spells out the roles and responsibilities of the national and provincial offices and the producers along with the roles and responsibilities of the on-farm auditors, who are the ones that go out and certify producers against the program.

At this point, the industry has to develop its management structure, Firth notes, adding that the Agency is still working out how these management programs will be audited. "Then they have to go back and measure their producer manual to make sure it still fits with all the frequencies and requirements of the management manual."

Implementing the program and having a third-party audit done are the next steps commodity groups have to complete before going through the final step of recognition. "That's where the Agency and the provinces would form another review team to look at that third-party audit, ensure all the corrections that the third party had identified were taken care of," Firth says. There's also an assessment of the national delivery of the program.

Increasingly, some form of HACCP-based management on the farm is being requested by both domestic and international buyers of farmers' products. Once these programs are recognized by the Agency, that gives them more credibility, Firth says, adding the Agency is Canada's largest food regulator and is well respected internationally. BF

HACCP - not a "silver bullet" but the best of preventing and identifying hazards

by SUSAN MANN

The process the company came up with has since been refined and reworked by various organizations. "It was picked up by the U.S. Department of Agriculture a little later and they played with it," says Martin Firth, manager of CFIA's policy and strategies division. "It was adopted by the international community through the Codex Ailmentarius Food of Hygiene Committee, which endorsed the program."

HACCP is a systematic and preventative approach, recognized worldwide, that addresses biological, chemical and physical hazards by anticipating and preventing them rather than by finished production inspection. The seven principles of HACCP include listing input materials, outlining the steps needed to create the product to the point of shipping and identifying all significant biological, chemical and physical hazards for each input material and each process step.

After identifying all the hazards, each one has to be analyzed for its significance. If a hazard, such as improperly pasteurized milk, would cause significant harm to the consuming public and had a high likelihood of happening, then it becomes a critical control point.

The next step is to determine the critical limits for each critical control point, to implement monitoring procedures and outline what's to be done if something goes wrong. Verification and record keeping are done on everything related to a critical control point.

HACCP is currently the best method of analyzing and controlling food safety hazards, but "it's still not a silver bullet," Firth says. Just because a producer has a food safety system on the farm doesn't guarantee that a problem won't arise, but it certainly reduces the likelihood.

The programs being put into place on farms are generally called HACCP-based because they employ HACCP principles. However, HACCP was developed for a production unit where you can control environmental factors, such as air quality and temperature and, notes Firth, "on a farm you have no control over that. Nor does the producer have the time or expertise to carry out the thorough hazard analysis that's needed."

Those two factors mean that HACCP can't be applied by an individual producer. But to enable solid programs to be developed, the Agency has advised commodities groups to use the principles of HACCP "in a generic form," he says. BF