College of Veterinary Medicine
Twin Cities
The Secure Food System is a proactive approach that works to optimize animal, plant and product 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 the 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.
Proactive risk assessments are based on current research in virology, epidemiology, and risk assessment as well as agricultural industry practice. The plans use science- and risk-based preparedness and response components to proactively assess the risk associated with the movement of animals and products from in a Control Area during an outbreak.
MSI high performance computing resources are critical for the disease transmission modeling informing secure food systems risk assessments, surveillance design, and foreign animal disease outbreak preparedness in the U.S. In particular, MSI resources enable the use of computationally intensive parameter estimation approaches that enhance the understanding of disease transmission dynamics.