Taming agriculture’s elephant: broadening the conversation about field equipment sanitation practices for specialty crops

Our project seeks to address one of agriculture's "elephants in the room," field equipment sanitation. The elephant in the room is that we KNOW that each piece of machinery that is moved from one field to the other is a potential vector for food safety, soil pathogen and weed problems. Furthermore, like the parable of the blind men and the elephant, the problems presented are highly variable. For some this is an issue of food borne disease, for others one of soil borne pathogens, and for yet others a source of invasive or herbicide resistant weeds. Ultimately, all these concerns can be solved with adequate cleaning and sanitation programs, but a question that remains is, adequate for what purpose/s?Our SCRI planning grant will address this multifaceted problem by developing:1) a transdisciplinary field equipment sanitation Community of Practice (COP), 2) a survey of industry needs and opportunities, 3) a field sanitation annotated bibliography, and 4) a USDA SCRI CAP proposal for a future RFA.