An effective pre-harvest quality assurance program will focus on not only production and product safety issues, but also on the total production environment. The program should set standards that address issues directly concerned with product safety and quality along with animal welfare and well-being. Practices range from basic herd management to herd health to nutrition and feeding. In MGQA these are “Preferred Production Practices” or PPP. On-farm evaluation and use of PPP are based upon the Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) principles.

HACCP systems are extensively used in the food processing and preparation industry, i.e., post-harvest processes, as a major means of assuring food safety. The key to the HACCP system is the analysis of potential production hazards and the pinpointing of places in production, called critical control points, where preventive measures can be taken. As an example of HACCP’s impact on the food industry, the U.S. Department of Agriculture mandated that meat and poultry processing establishments begin using HACCP by January 1999 to improve product safety and prevent the three main hazards that occur in food processing, biological (microbial contamination), chemical (toxins or drug residues), and physical (foreign material in food, e.g., glass or plastic).

Processing facilities must have HACCP plans in place to deal with hazards that occur post-harvest during processing and hazards that are present due to pre-harvest production practices. Thus, it is important for livestock industries to use HACCP-like principles in quality assurance programs to assist post-harvest processors trace detected failures in production and prevent future occurrences.

Quality assurance programs such as those mentioned for the beef, sheep, and pork industries are pre-harvest programs that use HACCP-like procedures to assist in the production of animals giving safe, wholesome products.

There are seven HACCP principles that assist producers and industry to identify, evaluate, control, and, finally, prevent food safety hazards and assure quality.

HACCP principles

1. Conduct a hazard analysis. Review your production system for procedures or places that could allow for harm to animals, compromise production, or introduce biological (microbial), chemical (toxins or drug residues) or physical contamination.

2. Determine critical control points. Critical control points are those areas in production where problems could happen resulting in lower quality products and where production changes or interventions should occur to prevent problems.

3. Establish critical limits for control points. Set desired limits on identified hazards.

4. Establish monitoring procedures for control points. Decide how to monitor and determine if critical limits have been met.

5. Establish corrective actions. Actions to be taken when monitoring procedures indicate a problem.

6. Establish record keeping and documentation procedures. Records should be kept on identified problems, corrective steps taken, effectiveness, and methods to prevent future occurrences.

7. Establish verification procedures. These procedures verify that proper corrective measures were taken and have been effective.

These seven principles can be used in virtually all aspects of production. For instance, in the drug residue example the seven HACCP principles would be as follows:

1. Hazard analysis – potential presence of drug residues.
2. Critical control point – withdrawal time prior to sale.
3. Critical limit – zero drug residues in meat.
4. Monitoring procedures – records kept on all animals treated on-farm, including animal number, drugs used, treatment dates, and withdrawal periods.
5. Corrective action – improved record keeping, employee training in drug use and record keeping.
6. Effective record keeping – check treatment documents to ensure proper, correct, and current information.
7. Verification procedures – periodic review of all records, no further reports of residues in meat.

While it may appear difficult to follow the seven steps of HACCP, in reality most livestock producers are already using HACCP-like procedures to solve and prevent problems. Diagnosing problems and taking corrective action are common occurrences on farms. The advantage of HACCP is that it provides a formal, proven framework of procedures whereby a producer can objectively evaluate current production systems, identify flaws, and put into place evaluation and corrective action plans prior to the occurrence of a problem. Using HACCP-like principles represents a shift from being reactive to events that cause production or quality loss, to being proactive by working to prevent those occurrences from happening.

Further, by using HACCP-like procedures, if a problem does occur the necessary planning for corrective actions are already in place saving time and eliminating other potential mistakes. Ultimately, preventing problems and production loss will result in an enhanced production environment with fewer problems that will lead to increased profit. That is the goal of all quality assurance programs.

Exposed nails or sharp wire on farm structures provide an illustrative example of the way producers may already be using HACCP-like principles. These sharp points and edges can cut a goat’s skin and lead to increased use of antibiotics, potential production loss from slower growth rates, damage to hides, etc. Thus, exposed nails and wire are a hazard and when noticed these are repaired or removed.

Using HACCP-like principles does not change the basics of what is performed, that is the prevention of cuts. What using HACCP-like principles does, is to assist in structuring a method of checking on the hazard and deciding what to do in the future to prevent another occurrence. To illustrate, the hazard is exposed nails or sharp wires. The control points are those portions of your pens and buildings where nail points could be exposed or where goats can damage facilities resulting in exposure. A desired critical limit is zero nails or wire exposed that could cause harm. Looking at facilities when feeding is one method of monitoring those control points. Corrective actions would be repairing fences or buildings to prevent nails from protruding or perhaps installing a shield in prone areas. Repairs or shield installation should be recorded in your farm records, particularly if any expense was involved. Finally, a regularly scheduled, periodic walkthrough of your facilities to inspect repairs and current condition would be a method of verifying that monitoring and corrective actions have worked.

Next
Module Home
CertificationTable of Contents
Browsing Table of Contents