UNR Ext Workshop puts meat safety front & center
July 17-18 event focuses on how to develop a plan to ensure food safety
Having the right plan in place is crucial to safely harvest, process and distribute meat products. People who work in the meat industry can receive training on how to create such a plan at a July 17-18 workshop provided by University of Nevada, Reno Extension.
Specifically, the workshop will address how to create a Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) plan, a management system recommended by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration in which food safety is addressed through the analysis and control of biological, chemical and physical hazards from raw material production, procurement and handling, to manufacturing, distribution and consumption of the finished product.
This workshop will be held at the Extension office in Reno, 4955 Energy Way, and is part of Herds & Harvest, an Extension program that combines a series of workshops on different topics, and provides educational business management and mentoring skill building to support Nevada agricultural producers. The cost of the workshop is $60, with lunch provided both days.
Jamie Lee, program officer with the Extension’s Mobile Harvest Unit Project, said the workshop is ideal for specific meat industry careers.
“The workshop is best suited for the beginning farmer or rancher, farm-to-fork producers or anyone who is currently working in a meat processing plant,” she said. “Currently, the availability of Nevada meat processing services and its workforce are extremely limited. Our goal is to provide valuable information and assistance to support producer and workforce education.”
The July 17 agenda (9am-4pm) includes these topics:
- What is an HACCP plan, and why do you need one?
- Differences in custom, USDA and state inspections
- An introduction to food safety
- Understanding the science: what are the three hazards to analyze?
- Principles of implementation, validation and verification
The July 18 program, from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., goes into greater detail on developing HACCP plans, and participants will create and review their own mock HACCP plan, discussing real-life applications and the best ways to evaluate the plan for effectiveness.
Workshop presenters include Lee and other industry and Extension experts.
Sanjideh said that the HACCP uses science-based controls to manage food safety at specific points in the food production process.
“These points are where hazards can be prevented, controlled, eliminated or reduced,” Sanjideh continued. “It’s a great food safety tool that’s focused on prevention.”
The HACCP workshop is supported by the USDA’s Western Region Meat and Poultry Processing Program, part of its Western Extension Risk Management Education Center. Register at the workshop’s registration site by June 30. Contact Lee at 775-475-4227 or jamielee1@unr.edu.
Persons in need of special accommodations or assistance should contact Paul Lessick, civil rights and compliance coordinator, at plessick@unr.edu or 702-257-5577 at least five days prior to the scheduled event with their needs or for more information.
To register for this event, visit:
HACCPforMeatBusiness.eventbrite.com
Jamie Lee, Program Officer,
Mobile Livestock Processing Unit
775-426-8299 OR 775-475-4227
Nevada College of Engineering gets $4 million Army grant to establish water center
Nevada Center for Water Resiliency could establish Nevada as a leader in water reuse technologies
The College of Engineering has received a $4 million grant from the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center to establish the Nevada Center for Water Resiliency, with the possibility of additional funds for subsequent research. The new center will research and test new technologies in water treatment, focusing on potable (drinking) water reuse from a variety of sources.
Led by Chemical & Materials Engineering Associate Professor Sage Hiibel and Civil & Environmental Engineering Associate Professor Eric Marchand, the center is the latest step in a longtime effort by the professors and their colleagues to find solutions for water-scarce communities. And Nevada — located in the heart of the arid American West — is the right place to develop new water reuse technologies, the professors say.
“As the driest state in the nation and one of the top 10 fastest-growing states, water resources in Nevada are stretched thin,” the professors wrote in their grant proposal Water Resiliency and Self Sufficiency: Advanced Technologies and Systems for Water Reuse. “As a result, communities in Nevada are eager to find novel ways to diversify the state’s water portfolio, and are at the forefront of water conservation and reuse strategies.”
The new center will organize under the University’s already existing Nevada Water Innovation Institute. Its research projects fall into four areas: advanced water reuse technologies, emerging contaminants, alternative water sources and resource recovery. In addition to Hiibel and Marchand, Engineering faculty involved in the center are Keith Dennett, David Hanigan, Rashed Khan, Krishna Pagilla and Victor Vasquez.
While the primary focus of the new center is to increase water resiliency of municipal water systems, a key secondary benefit has national implications. Because potable reuse of reclaimed water is not regulated at the federal level, there is no federal standard governing water reuse activities, creating challenges for U.S. forces and federal agencies as well as regional governing organizations. Hiibel and Marchand propose that the center will facilitate communication between those stakeholders, including the Department of Defense, which oversees civilian works and military installations; the Environmental Protection Agency, which regulates drinking water; and the Department of Energy, which oversees water use for energy purposes.
Bridging that communication gap ultimately could lead to new water-reuse technologies and approaches that can be transitioned to real-world applications at a faster pace, according to Hiibel and Marchand.
“With this new center, Nevada is positioned to become a regional and national leader in water reuse technologies,” Engineering Dean Erick Jones said. “Congratulations to Dr. Hiibel and Dr. Marchand on this achievement, which will work to address one of the most pressing issues of our time — water scarcity.”
The new center aligns with one of the College of Engineering’s research pillars: equitable infrastructure, mitigating natural hazards, including water issues.
Multimillion grants to establish research centers aren’t won overnight: Hiibel, Marchand and their colleagues have been working for about a decade toward this latest development.
It started with a 2012 project, A Fully Integrated Membrane Bioreactor System for Wastewater Treatment in Remote Applications, funded through the Department of Defense (DOD) and completed in 2018. The team followed up with a second DOD-funded project, “Portable Water Reuse System Driven by Waste Heat,” in 2018 that currently is wrapping up.
Along the way, the Water Reuse Consortium — comprised of Hiibel and Marchand in Nevada and their colleagues Dr. Andrea Achilli at the University of Arizona and Dr. Amy Childress at the University of Southern California — was organized and began its own integrated research on water issues. All three consortium partners applied for and received grants from the U.S. Army.
“Our military collaborators have seen how well we’ve done with the previous projects, so they are excited to build on that work with the consortium,” Hiibel said.
Although each university in the consortium is working on different types of water issues, Hiibel and Marchand expect to benefit and to contribute to shared information and data.
“We still have the same challenges around water,” Hiibel said. “It’s very, very important to come up with new ideas and new ways to increase our water supply,” he added.
Hiibel and Marchand’s proposal to the U.S. Army was divided into three phases, with a total proposed budget of $10 million over four years. The recently awarded $4 million covers the first phase — establishment of the new center and related research — which began in late May and will continue for the next 18 months.
If funded, Phases 2 and 3 will continue the current efforts and expand the research projects to be completed. But in addition to the current research, Hiibel and Marchand plan to increase the center’s scope of work by applying for additional funding from such organizations as the National Alliance for Water Innovation.
“We hope that we can build an infrastructure for Nevada to be a player on the national stage when it comes to these water reuse technologies,” Hiibel said.