Agricultural production systems can serve as reservoir for human pathogens

Abstract

Food-borne diseases are a threat to human health and can cause severe economic losses. Nowadays, in a growing and increasingly interconnected world, food-borne diseases need to be dealt with in a global manner. In order to tackle this issue, it is essential to consider all possible entry routes of human pathogens into the production chain. Besides the post-harvest handling of the fresh produce itself, also the prevention of contamination in livestock and agricultural soils are of particular importance. While the monitoring of human pathogens and intervening measures are relatively easy to apply in livestock and post-harvest, the investigation of the prevention strategies in crop fields is a challenging task. Furthermore, crop fields are interconnected with livestock via fertilizers and feed; therefore, a poor hygiene management can cause cross-contamination. In this review, we highlight the possible contamination of crop plants by bacterial human pathogens via the rhizosphere, their interaction with the plant and possible intervention strategies. Furthermore, we discuss critical issues and questions that are still open.

Determination of Salmonella enterica Leaf Internalization Varies Substantially According to the Method and Conditions Used to Assess Bacterial Localization

“…Human pathogens can colonize plants and persist on and sometimes within various plant's tissues, and upon consumption may cause foodborne diseases (Barak and Schroeder, 2012;Deering et al, 2012;Erickson, 2012;Brandl and Sundin, 2013;Holden et al, 2015;Fornefeld et al, 2017;Jacob and Melotto, 2019;Roy and Melotto, 2019;Schierstaedt et al, 2019). Accordingly, accurate determination of the localization of human pathogen on or within leaves is vital for basic science as well as for developing new strategies for preventing and intervening to address the problem of fresh produce contamination.…”

Positive biofilms to guide surface microbial ecology in livestock buildings

“…Biosecurity management measures must be taken until the end of the chain and not only during breeding. Organic waste from livestock can be used as fertilizer for crops and thus disseminate pathogens in the environment [ 59 ].…”

Soil pathogens that may potentially cause pandemics, including severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) coronaviruses

“…Pathogens found indirectly in the soil such as from the addition of fecal material, wastewater, sewage, manure, etc are not considered further in this review, and due to space limitations not all potential pathogens are discussed. The authors refer the reader to the following in-depth reviews for additional discussion of soil pathogens [ 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 ].…”