Background: The husbandry systems for laying hens were changed in Sweden during the years 2001 -2004, and an increase in the number of submissions for necropsy from laying hen farms was noted. Hence, this study was initiated to compare causes of mortality in different housing systems for commercial laying hens during this change.

Samples collected from 791 wild animals (Canada geese, roe deer, hares, moose, wild boar and gulls) shot during hunting were examined for verocytotoxin-producing Escherichia coli (VTEC) O157, and thermophilic Campylobacter and Salmonella species. With the exception of one positive isolate from a wild boar, VTEC O157 was not isolated from any of the animals. Salmonella species were isolated only from the gulls, of which 4 per cent were estimated to be positive. Thermophilic Campylobacter species were commonly isolated from all the species except deer.

This review discusses food safety aspects of importance from a One Health perspective, focusing on Europe. Using examples of food pathogen/food commodity combinations, spread of antimicrobial resistance in the food web and the risk of transmission of zoonotic pathogens in a circular system, it demonstrates how different perspectives are interconnected. The chosen examples all show the complexity of the food system and the necessity of using a One Health approach. Food safety resources should be allocated where they contribute most One Health benefits. Data on occurrence and disease burden and knowledge of source attribution are crucial in assessing costs and benefits of control measures. Future achievements in food safety, public health and welfare will largely be based on how well politicians, researchers, industry, national agencies and other stakeholders manage to collaborate using the One Health approach. It can be concluded that closer cooperation between different disciplines is necessary to avoid silo thinking when addressing important food safety challenges. The importance of this is often mentioned, but more proof of concept is needed by the research community.

Aims:  To investigate (i) possible correlations between the presence of Campylobacter spp. in the surroundings of broiler farms and their incidence in flocks, and (ii) possible associations between weather conditions and the occurrence of Campylobacter spp. Methods and Results:  Farms were selected according to previous results from the Swedish Campylobacter programme. Samples were collected in and around broiler houses during the rearing period from 131 flocks on 31 farms, including sock samples from the ground outside, from the floor in the broiler houses and anterooms, and samples from insects, water, feed and ventilation shafts. Conclusions:  As expected, there was a difference in Campylobacter isolation rates for different categories of farms regarding samples taken in the houses. However, there were no differences regarding the presence of Campylobacter spp. in the environment between producers that often deliver Campylobacter‐positive slaughter batches and those that rarely deliver positive batches. Campylobacter spp. were more frequently found in the surroundings on rainy days when compared with sunny days. Significance and Impact of the Study:  Physical barriers between outside and inside the houses appeared to be important for preventing Campylobacter spp. in the environment to be transferred into the broiler houses.

Global food security is one of the most pressing issues for humanity, and agricultural production is critical for achieving this. The existing analyses of specific threats to agricultural food production seldom bring out the contrasts associated with different levels of economic development and different climatic zones. We therefore investigated the same biophysical threats in three modelled types of countries with different economic and climatic conditions. The threats analysed were environmental degradation, climate change and diseases and pests of animals and plants. These threats were analysed with a methodology enabling the associated risks to be compared. The timeframe was 2012-2050 and the analysis was based on three underlying assumptions for 2050: the world population will have increased to 9 billion people, there will be a larger middle class in the world and climate change will be causing more extreme weather events, higher temperatures and altered precipitation. It is suggested that the risks, presented by the biophysical threats analysed, differ among the three modelled types of countries and that climate zone, public stewardship and economic strength are major determinants of these differences. These determinants are far from evenly spread among the world's major food producers, which implies that diversification of risk monitoring and international assessment of agricultural production is critical for assuring global food security in 2050.

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The United Nations sustainable development goals include eradication of hunger. To feed 10 billion persons 2050, we need to get the trade-offs right between sustainability, food security, food safety, and make better use of food already produced. The hierarchy of strategies for reducing food losses and waste are in descending order source reduction, reusing or reprocessing surplus foods, recycle food as feed for animals, recover the energy as biofuels, nutrients as compost, or raw materials for industry, while as last resorts one may consider recovering the energy by incineration or dumping as garbage in landfills. This paper will explore the trade-offs inherent when aiming at triple goals of sustainability, food security, and safety looking at these strategies for reducing food losses and waste and resource footprints. Intensification of food production and circular food systems could be parts of these solutions to future food security. In this regard could our future trade-offs be informed by the experiences from the use of antimicrobials to intensify food production and from the outbreak of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in terms of circular food production? There is no trade-off between intensification of food production aided by antimicrobials and the public health risks from antimicrobial resistance due to the zoo-technical use of antimicrobials. A sustainable future requires control of antimicrobial resistance. If one avoids that cycles of nutrients become cycles of pathogens and/or hazards, circular food production systems will a major contribution to the future sustainable food security. Source reduction i.e., limiting food losses and waste appears to the strategy most promising for achieving sustainability. By using artificial intelligence and intelligent packaging major progress is possible, with the added benefit of better control of food fraud. A changed diet-eating more plant-based foods and not eating animal protein produced by edible feedstuffs, and source reduction of the food lost or wasted should enable us to feed at least an additional billion persons. Solutions to sustainability and food security should integrate food safety considerations from the start.

This article describes the spatial and temporal distribution of verotoxin-producing Escherichia coli among humans (EHEC) and cattle (VTEC) in Sweden, in order to evaluate relationships between the incidence of EHEC in humans, prevalence of VTEC O157 in livestock and agricultural structure by an ecological study. The spatial patterns of the distribution of human infections were described and compared with spatial patterns of occurrence in cattle, using a Geographic Information System (GIS). The findings implicate a concentration of human infection and cattle prevalence in the southwest of Sweden. The use of probability mapping confirmed unusual patterns of infection rates. The comparison of human and cattle infection indicated a spatial and statistical association. The correlation between variables of the agricultural structure and human EHEC incidence was high, indicating a significant statistical association of cattle and farm density with human infection. The explained variation of a multiple linear regression model was 0.56.