International Food Safety Training Program for Plant and Animal Products

Unsafe food threatens public health and undermines food security at local, regional and global levels. We worked with our partners to support global food security strategy through knowledge access and targeted training.

BACKGROUND

Modern and reliable food safety systems are critical for countries to ensure access to safe and nutritious foods for their people, as well as to unlock trade and market access opportunities for their agricultural and food products. To achieve these goals, the Food Safety for Food Security Team and Texas A&M, along with our collaborative partners the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS), USAID and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), worked together on behalf of the U.S. government’s Feed the Future initiative to develop an international training program on core sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) — comprising animal and plant health and food safety — topics.

SERVICES WE PROVIDED

Instructional Design

Multimedia Production

Illustration

Identity Design

LMS Development & Hosting

Communications & Outreach

Multi-Language Support in English, French, Spanish, and Dari

OUR APPROACH

Participants complete engaging interactive web-based modules, and apply the modules’ concepts to real-world agricultural trade activities during in-person or online workshops. The Plant Health program effectively teaches how to incorporate and use science-based risk analysis concepts and tools for analyzing, establishing quarantine, and controlling pests and disease. The Animal Health and Food Safety programs explore the essential components for modernizing one’s food safety system and seek to increase understanding of animal health disease surveillance and emergency response measures that could lead to compliance with internationally accepted and science-based food safety standards.

screen from the Food Safety course showing a pop up topic about roles in a national food control system.

screen showing thumbnails for the 14 Plant Health module available

screen from the Animal Health module showing the Impact of the HPAI outbreak in the US in 2014. a map of the US is overlayed with hotspot markers and photos of poultry and emergency responders.

An additional benefit of this training is that participants will be prepared to deliver future trainings themselves, thus disseminating knowledge to prevent SPS/food safety problems and minimize risks of animal and food crop disease.

sample screens from the SPS courses showing concepts of plant and animal health and food safety

"Government officials who are benefiting from the training have reported that they are already applying their increased knowledge of trade rules on-the-job."

— Kelly Skupnik, USDA

"The USDA SPS Distance Learning Training Course has significantly improved Pakistan’s ability to have trade dialogues based on science, not politics."

— David Williams, Agricultural Attaché in Islamabad, Pakistan