Poultry truck

Photo courtesy of JVLX, Inc.


Food moves from farms to market everyday across the nation.  Today’s agriculture is built on a just-in-time delivery model where an egg laid today may be on food shelves tomorrow.   When disease outbreaks happen, movements, including those from uninfected farms may be stopped to prevent the outbreak from spreading. Collateral damage that comes from the stopped movement of food products in a just-in-time system may be a larger threat to the food supply, social stability, and economic viability of rural communities than a disease outbreak itself.

The Secure Food System is a proactive approach that works to optimize agricultural movements from uninfected farms in an outbreak.  Public-private partners using risk-based science construct feasible mitigation strategies that limit disease risk associated with specific product movements. The result is Secure Food Supply Plan that provides answers to the question, how can farms close to, but not directly involved in, an outbreak, continue to move food products without potentially spreading disease?  The Secure Food System thus facilitates the safe movement of food products which results in a more efficient use of the resources that produce our food and thus an improved economy and a more secure food supply.

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