Newswise — Food safety threats know no borders. Justin Kastner understands this and encourages his research team to use different academic disciplines to understand how best to address these threats.
Kastner looks at the interrelated issues in his role as a coordinator of Frontier, an interdisciplinary program for the historical studies of food security, border security and trade policy at Kansas State University. Kastner, an assistant professor in KSU's diagnostic medicine/pathobiology department, works in tandem with Jason Ackleson, an assistant professor of government at New Mexico State University.
"We're combining disciplines such as food safety and security, political science, history, as well as international political economy, a discipline that helps us understand how nations trade and cooperate with one another," Kastner said. "Our approach is admittedly unconventional but we believe we are helping to paint a better picture of the complexities of food safety, food security and trade."
The Frontier project, which involves some students funded by the Food Safety Consortium, reviews issues such as World Trade Organization (WTO) agreements, trade disputes related to food safety and animal disease, international trade concepts and export policies. It maintains a multimedia, podcasting Web site at http://frontier.k-state.edu. In the Frontier program, Kastner and Ackleson pursue joint research such as immigration's role in U.S. food security, a project in cooperation with the Immigration Policy Center in Washington. They have also explored U.S.-Canadian relations in food safety and security and border security.
Kastner's undergraduate and graduate students delve into topics that tie into each other. "They are looking at geographical information systems and how, from a food biosecurity standpoint, we can promote such concepts as regionalization and compartmentalization in trade," he said. "Large countries, such as the U.S. and Canada, stand to benefit by applying these concepts as they can limit countrywide consequences of food safety or biosecurity problems."
For example, if an animal disease or source of foodborne illness can be isolated to a particular geographic location (regionalization), then WTO agreements can be used to certify to foreign governments that the source of the problem has been pinpointed.
"If there's an isolated case of BSE and we can isolate that to a specific feed supply chain and demonstrate that it's isolated, that gives us a stronger argument in the international trade arena," Kastner said. "That's good for international trade relations because even if we have biosecurity breaches, by demonstrably isolating these problems we can keep trade alive." Kastner also collaborates on academic programs with Abbey Nutsch, an assistant professor food safety and security at KSU. "We developed a food safety and security internship program primarily for undergraduate students who are seeking out multidisciplinary research and writing projects," Kastner said. A food science undergraduate headed for medical school examined issues of avian and human influenza and rural Kansas' preparedness for the diseases. Another student studied the differences in U.S. and European food safety policies regarding raw milk cheeses.
One new aspect of North American trade relations is the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP), a 2005 agreement among the U.S., Canada and Mexico. Kastner said its theme is that the continent as a whole should be thinking about security as a way to find solutions to common problems.
"The SPP's approach says, 'Let's try to push the border back.' So instead of everything happening as an inspection between the U.S. and Canada or the U.S. and Mexico, North America can try to make it so that its regulatory systems are more harmonized in the first place. After all, you can't inspect everything," he said. "From a prosperity standpoint we are very dependent on trade within North America. So there is a need to emphasize both security and trade. Border security, food security and trade policy are dynamic issues."
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