Threats to the Global Food Supply

The Security of Complex Food Systems

Marc Fortin, PhD, Vice President, Research Partnerships, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, Ottawa, Canada

Threats to the security of supply chains and different agricultural and food production sectors have identified risks for which stakeholders have developed mitigation plans. These interventions are more often focused on reducing or controlling risks to reduce the probability and severity of impact. Fewer studies have focused on the interconnectedness of security risks identified by public safety and defense officials with their collateral impacts on food, food safety and food security. The security assessments generated by defense and security organizations are generally poorly exploited to identify sources of risks for the food sector. A system of systems approach can provide enhanced situational awareness for identifying “choke points” in the security of food systems. We will discuss concepts of resilience of systems and their application to enhancing food security across different food sectors. The complexity of interactions between the components of food systems creates challenges that are different from many other sectors of civil society.

Microbial Threats to Food System in the Age of Big Data

Keith Warriner, PhD, University of Guelph, Canada

Food safety is a dynamic arena with positive inputs through improved diagnostics, intervention technologies, risk analysis and epidemiology. This has been countered by trends for clean labels, health food fads, climate change, globalization and increase in foods prepared outside the domestic environment. Despite the food revolution the overriding philosophy of the food safety system has been to prevent pathogens reaching the consumer, principally through post-harvest interventions.  In a similar manner, public health has focused on monitoring foodborne illness and source attribution. Yet, the original source of pathogens and the winding road by which they became introduced into the food chain is rarely considered. With the advent of enabling technologies, the age of Big Data has brought valuable insights into the food safety challenge. Specifically, molecular diagnostic techniques have enabled early detection of foodborne illness outbreaks and source attribution. Moreover, the available techniques have detected pathogens in uncommon food vehicles that would have otherwise been missed and highlighted the carriage of unspecified agents (i.e. not confirmed foodborne pathogens) that account for 80% of illnesses recorded. The significance of bacterial dormancy to food safety has also been brought to the fore with increase application of non-culture based techniques. Importantly, Big Data has provided the tools to undertake a One Health approach that aims to reduce the prevalence and dissemination within the food chain. Big Data can also contribute to enhancing traceability that represents an important tool in the globalization of the food supply. Blockchain is one approach and represents a foundation to introduce interventions to minimize the dissemination of pathogens through the farm-to-fork continuum.  

Emerging Global Food Threats – Biotoxins Impediments to Aquaculture Feeding the World

Allen R. Place, PhD, Institute of Marine and Environmental Technology, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, Baltimore, MD, USA

According to the recent FAO report, aquaculture is the fastest growing food-producing sector worldwide and now accounts for greater than 60% of the world’s fish used for food. A major question is whether continual growth can occur without destroying the environment. Current aquaculture practices harvest fish to feed fish, add excessive nutrients to the aquatic environment, and frequently are associated with harmful algal blooms and other biotoxins which can destroy production. We will examine our current ability to sustainably replace fish meal and fish oil as a feed source, examine feed practices that reduce nutrient input to the environment, and environmental controls on biotoxin accumulation in the final food product, be it mollusks or fish.

Climate Change, Food Systems, Nutrition and Health: Challenges and Opportunities 

Cristina Tirado, DVM, PhD, UCLA, Los Angeles, California, USA

Promoting sustainable food systems, good nutrition, health and in the context of a changing climate is a central challenge of our time. While climate change has an impact on our food systems, our food systems also affect climate change. Food production and consumption are responsible for 19-29% of the human-induced greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. By 2050, GHG emissions from food and agriculture could rise by as much as 80% due to the increased consumption of animal products. Food-related GHG emissions could account for half of all emissions allowed by targets for keeping the global rise in temperature to less than 2°C by the middle of the century and could exceed total permissible levels by 2070.

Diets, meanwhile, have deteriorated globally, leading to an increase in non-communicable diseases (NCDs), particularly type II diabetes, coronary heart disease and some cancers. Malnutrition is a universal challenge, affecting all countries in its various forms. Economic development, globalization, urbanization and lifestyle changes have caused major shifts towards poor diet, excessive caloric intake and low levels of exercise. The alarming pace of climate and environmental change and its effects on food systems, nutrition and health require a major rethink of how food is produced and consumed.

This presentation will address the nexus between sustainable food systems, dietary patterns, health, nutrition and climate change adaptation and mitigation. It outlines the global frameworks and agreements on climate change, food and nutrition, exploring the many, complex ways in which food systems and diets affects climate change, and vice versa. It looks at food systems and diets that boost health and are environmentally sustainable, as well as the measures needed to steer food production and consumption in that direction, emphasizing the importance of concerted and coherent policymaking to develop sustainable food systems and diets, while safeguarding the planet.

Case Example: Natural Disasters - Impact on the Global Food Supply

Amy Kircher, DrPH, University of Minnesota and National Center for Food Protection & Defense, St. Paul, Minnesota, USA

We never imagined we’d have to worry about someone tampering with our food supply, then 9/11 happened. Today we are faced with new stories of intentional contamination of our food for economic gain. To have terrorists and fraudsters target our food supply…the consequences are devastating. We cannot opt out of eating which makes our food supply a critical infrastructure. Disruptions from natural and intentional contamination are a considerable threat as our food system constantly evolves. This talk will highlight the cascading consequences of disasters and the threats to our food system from intelligent adversaries motivated to create fear, harm our citizens, or make money.

A Systems Approach: New Methods and Technologies to Predict and Manage Food Supply Threats

Bruce Y. Lee, MD, MBA Executive Director, Global Obesity Prevention Center (GOPC), Associate Professor of International Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and Associate Professor, Johns Hopkins Carey Business School, Baltimore, MD, USA

The global food supply is a complex system consisting of food sources, storage and processing equipment and locations, transport vehicles and devices, personnel, and many different steps and processes. The systems around the supply system are also complex and pose different possible threats. Understanding these threats and food security can be challenging without the help of methods and technologies that help better understand complex systems. This talk will cover some of the systems methods and technologies (such as computational simulation modeling) that are relevant to the food supply and threats to the food supply and give examples of applications, such as identifying vulnerabilities and their impact and designing, developing, and testing new policies, interventions, and technologies.

Bruce Y. Lee, MD, MBA 

Bruce Lee is Associate Professor of International Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Executive Director of the Global Obesity Prevention Center (GOPC) at Johns Hopkins (www.globalobesity.org), and Director of Operations Research at the International Vaccine Access Center (IVAC) as well as Associate Professor at the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School. Dr. Lee has two decades of experience in industry and academia in systems science, digital health, and developing and implementing mathematical and computational methods, models, and tools to assist decision making in public health, health, and medicine. He has been the Principal Investigator for projects supported by a variety of organizations and agencies including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Agency for Healthcare Quality and Research (AHRQ), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), UNICEF, the Global Fund, and USAID. His previous positions include serving as Senior Manager at Quintiles Transnational, working in biotechnology equity research at Montgomery Securities, and co-founding Integrigen, and serving as an Associate Professor at the University of Pittsburgh, where he founded PIHCOR (Public Health Computational and Operations Research), which is now based at Johns Hopkins.

Dr. Lee has authored over 200 scientific publications (including over 100 first author and over 65 last author) as well as three books: “Principles and Practice of Clinical Trial Medicine”, “What If… ? : Survival Guide for Physician’s, and “Medical Notes : Clinical Medicine Pocket Guide”. He is an Associate Editor for the journal Vaccine and Deputy Editor for PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases. Dr. Lee is a regular contributor to Forbes and the Huffington Post and has also written for Time, The Guardian, and the MIT Technology Review. His research and expertise have appeared in leading media outlets such as the New York Times, USA Today, Los Angeles Times, Time, CBS News, Businessweek, U.S. News and World Report, Bloomberg News, Reuters, and National Public Radio (NPR). Dr. Lee received his B.A. from Harvard University, M.D. from Harvard Medical School, and M.B.A. from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He completed his internal medicine residency training at the University of California, San Diego. His Twitter handle is @bruce_y_lee

Jason Hlywka, PhD.

Jason Hlywka is the corporate global toxicologist for The Kraft Heinz Company headquartered in Chicago, IL, USA.  In this capacity, Dr. Hlywka has responsibility for leadership and direction on various regulatory and scientific affairs matters that are pertinent to food safety and consumer health across a broad portfolio of food products around the world.  He has dedicated his career to the applied field of food toxicology as it relates to human health and assessing the safety of dietary constituents. Dr. Hlywka completed his B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in toxicology at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada. Dr. Hlywka received his Ph.D. in food science and toxicology from the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, USA and completed post-doctoral training at the Food Allergy Research and Resource Program at Nebraska under the guidance of Drs. Steve Taylor and Sue Hefle. Prior to Kraft Heinz, he held industry positions with Kraft Foods, Cargill, and Cantox Health Sciences International. Dr. Hlywka has authored numerous peer-reviewed articles and participates in various industry, academic, and scientific associations and committees.

Marc Fortin, PhD

As Vice-President of Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada’s (NSERC) Research Partnerships, Dr. Fortin is responsible for programs designed to stimulate research partnerships across a broad range of organizations and to maximize the benefits that university and college research provide to Canada.  Prior to joining NSERC, Dr. Fortin held a variety of positions leading research organizations in both academia and government. For 16 years he held senior leadership positions at McGill University including Department Chair and Associate Dean (Research). For the past 11 years, he has led the science and technology branches as Assistant Deputy Minister at the Department of National Defence and previously at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.  He has led the development of innovative funding programs to generate better integrated innovation chains that capitalize on the engagement of actors and intervenors in and outside government.  He is particularly passionate about catalyzing the development of organizations capable of operating in complex environments and in uncertain futures. Dr. Fortin is a graduate of McGill University and of Université Laval, and also conducted research at The University of Chicago and at The University of California at Davis.

Allen Place, PhD

Dr. Allen Place is a Professor at the Institute of Marine and Environmental Technology of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science. Dr. Place has over 200 publications in diverse areas dealing with Harmful Algae and development of fishmeal free diets for aquaculture. In the wake of the 1997 fish kills and public concern surrounding Pfiesteria, Dr. Place set out to study the algae species blamed for killing fish and sickening humans in the Chesapeake Bay and its rivers.  To aid in the study, Place and his team got hold of another algae, Gyrodinium galatheanum (now called Karlodinium veneficum), to serve as a comparison to their species of interest, Pfiesteria.  Both Karlodinium and Pfiesteria are dinoflagellates — one-celled algae that propel through water with whip-like flagella. Things took an unexpected turn when the researchers found that Karlodinium actually appeared more toxic than Pfiesteria. Further study has led Place to suspect that Karlodinium was the real culprit in the so-called “Pfiesteria hysteria” of 1997. He has spent the last fifteen years researching the microscopic algal cell at the Institute of Marine and Environmental Technology (formerly COMB) in Baltimore. Every year since then, blooms of Karlodinium have been implicated in fish kills along the Atlantic coast as well as worldwide. The nature of fish kills can be traced to production of a unique polyketide toxin similar in structure to amphidinol. The toxin is made to assist in prey capture (i.e. cryptophytes) through formation of a nonspecific pore upon complexation with prey’s sterol brassicasterol. In collaboration with Mark Hamann at the University of Mississippi the complete absolute structure for one of the karlotoxins has been determined. These compounds have intriguing cholesterol binding properties which could be exploited in a variety of ways as a drug lead. 

To help aquaculture grow, Dr. Place and his team have developed plant protein based diets that contain no fish meal yet perform as well for producing protein to feed the 7 billion humans inhabiting our planet. Dr. Place has received several awards including the 2020 UMCES President’s Award for Excellence in Science Application and the 2008 USM Board of Regent’s Award for Excellence in Public Service. Dr. Place was Vice-Chairman for the June 2017 Gordon Research Conference, Mycotoxin and Phycotoxin and is Chair for the June 2019 Gordon Research Conference, Mycotoxin and Phycotoxin.

Cristina Tirado, DVM, PhD

Cristina Tirado works at the interface between science and policy related to climate change, food, health and sustainable development with WHO, FAO, UNEP, governments, NGOs and universities worldwide.  She has served as WHO Food Safety Regional Adviser in Europe (53 countries) and in Latin America (45 countries), as Coordinator of the WHO Food-borne Surveillance Program and Director of the Public Health Institute’s (PHI) Center for Climate Change and Health in California. Currently Dr. Tirado is affiliated with the UCLA Institute of Environment and Sustainability, she is Director of Global Programs at the Loyola Marymount University (LMU) Center for Urban Resilience, and serves as policy adviser for several UN organizations. She chairs the International Union of Nutritional Sciences Task Force for Climate and Nutrition, moderates the UN Standing Committee of Nutrition group on Climate Change, and serves in the Secretariat of the Mediterranean Cities for Climate Change Consortium.

Dr. Tirado is a health, nutrition and gender equity advocate at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). She has been a key partnerships' driver at Rio+20, contributing through the women’s major group to the high-level consultations for the sustainable development goals and 2030 agenda and currently to the high-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development. Dr. Tirado is the lead coordinating author of the UNEP/TEEB Agrifood Foundations Report; she has been a contributing author of the health chapter of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and she has authored numerous research and policy publications and books. She is a DVM, with MS/PhD degrees in Environmental Sciences from Cornell University.

Amy Kircher, DrPH

Amy Kircher is the Director of the Food Protection and Defense Institute, a Department of Homeland Security Center of Excellence and an Assistant Professor in the College of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Minnesota. She leads the Institute’s initiatives and coordinates a research consortium of experts dedicated to protecting the food system through research and education. Her current research includes identification and warning of food disruptions and emerging disease through data fusion and analysis; supply chains; and delivery of innovative solutions to the professionals in the field. Additionally, she conducts research efforts on global health and pandemic preparedness leveraging expertise and technology that exists in the Institute.

Prior to coming to the University of Minnesota, Dr. Kircher was the Command epidemiologist with the NORAD – US Northern Command (N-NC) Office of the Command Surgeon. At N-NC she led disease surveillance, epidemiologic modeling, bioterrorism preparedness, and served as a public health expert. Dr. Kircher has an extensive background in Homeland Security Defense, supporting operations and response during national disasters to include Hurricane Katrina, and H1N1. She was awarded both the DOD Joint Civilian Service Commendation Medal and DOD Joint Civilian Service Achievement Medal for work at the Commands.

Dr. Kircher completed her Doctorate in Public Health at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill.

Keith Warriner, PhD.

Dr. Keith Warriner is currently a Professor within the Department of Food Science at University of Guelph, Canada. He received his BSc in Food Science from the University of Nottingham, UK and a PhD in Microbial Physiology from the University College of Wales Aberystwyth, UK. Dr. Warriner later went on to work on biosensors within the University of Manchester, UK and subsequently returned to the University of Nottingham to become a Research Fellow in Food Microbiology. He joined the Faculty of the University of Guelph in 2002.

During the last fifteen years in the field of microbiology and food safety research, Dr. Warriner has published more than 100 papers, book chapters, patents, and conference abstracts. His research interests are focused on enhancing food safety within meat processing and the fresh cut sectors. To this end, his research team have advanced knowledge in the area of emerging pathogens, intervention technologies and development of biosensor devices to detection of foodborne hazards. Dr. Warriner was awarded the Agri-Food Innovation of Excellence for 2017. He is frequently contacted by the media to provide commentary on food safety issues and is the past President of the Ontario Food Protection Association.