Perspectives from North of the 49th
August 2006

“I have been privileged to have gained special insight into what IAFP needs to continue doing in the future to keep on a successful track”
By Jeffrey Farber, IAFP President        

It is very hard for me to believe that a whole year has gone by since I was handed the gavel and started to serve as your President. It certainly has been one of the most rewarding years of my life. I wanted to thank you for allowing me to serve as your President. It has been a great honor for me. First, I would like to thank our great extended Executive Board, Frank, Stan, Gary, Kathy, Terry, Vickie, and Maria Teresa. I have learned something from each and every one of you and I truly appreciate the great support you have given me this year. I would also like to thank all the Affiliate Board of Directors, Delegates, and their members for also being so supportive. My deepest gratitude goes to the IAFP staff, namely Julie, Donna, Pam, Tamara, Donna G., Didi, Farrah, Nancy, Karla, and Dave L., for all their hard work, dedication and professionalism. A very special and heartfelt thank you to Lisa and David, who have been great mentors to me, especially David, and I cannot say enough about how important these two individuals have been and will continue to be the future success of our organization.

I write this column at the end of June, 2006. With extreme sadness, this month we lost a great friend and colleague, Dr. Elmer Marth. Those of us who were fortunate enough to know or have worked with Elmer will always have fond memories of this truly wonderful person – a consummate professional and gentleman in every sense of the word.

Some of the things that will stand out in my mind as IAFP President this past year was playing a leading role in the organization of our first ever European symposium, visiting and getting to know better some of our Affiliates, interacting with the students in a web-based discussion form, moving ahead with our new dues re-structuring along with an electronic newsletter and beginning our agreement with the WHO along the road to becoming an NGO. The Brazilian Association for Food Protection (BAFP or ABRAPA in Portuguese) meeting that I attended was held in São Paulo, Brazil in June. It was held in conjunction with the Brazilian Society for Microbiology, and was very well attended with close to
150 attendees. This is truly amazing since the BAFP has only been in existence since 2002. At the meet-ing, there was topical and interesting scientific content, which included talks on Listeria, E. sakazakii, emerging food safety trends, a whole session on allergens, current-future risk management tools and food toxicology. The two-day meeting was certainly a great success and was due to the hard work and efforts of Maria Teresa Destro and Marisa Landgraf, who did an outstanding job and should be highly commended. As you know, our Affiliates are a very important part of our organization and I was really heartened by the attendance at the meeting and the interest in learning about IAFP. BAFP has shown that in only a few years an Affiliate can really grow and be vibrant and viable.

I have been privileged to have gained special insight into what IAFP needs to continue doing in the future to keep on a successful track (in no specific order). We need to do our best to:

• Maintain or increase student participation in IAFP – keeping them excited and interested, “getting them hooked into our great Association” is one of our keys to the future
• Keep our wonderful IAFP staff intact
• Expand our Affiliate community by providing them value for their membership – so that they will spread the word and attract new Members and Affiliates into the organization
• Keep growing internationally not only in dev-eloped countries, but also in developing countries
• Organize high-quality Annual Meetings, as well as pro-viding other benefits to Members throughout the year – hot topic symposia delivered to all parts of the globe, timely white papers, job postings, food safety advice and information – be the “go-to organization for food safety”
• Add “cutting-edge” and novel topics to our Annual Meeting program, such as biotechnology, food allergens, food safety disaster preparedness, food defense, and more applied programming aimed at the plant QA/managerial level
• Continue to grow our membership base and have “good attendance” at our Annual Meeting, but not so “good” that we lose the closeness and intimacy that is the hallmark of IAFP
• Be more proactive with our PDG groups and meet m ore often throughout the year to take advantage of the great expertise and diversity that exists

In terms of food safety, while in North America our food supply has never been safer, foodborne illness is still a very significant problem and we will need to remain extremely vigilant in the years ahead. This will definitely keep our Members busy and not wanting for jobs. Some
of the key issues that will keep all of us busy include:

• Increasing push for a wider variety of foods year-round, especially those that are fresh and that have a long shelf life
• Increasingly elderly population with greater susceptibilities to infections
• Food defense issues
• Emerging pathogens, including the viruses and protozoan parasites as well as TSEs
• Increased travel, including cruise ships, etc.
• New inactivation technologies which may put selective pressures on the emergence of new hardy and resistant strains
• New knowledge which will link foodborne pathogens more closely with chronic diseases

As I have said several times in this column, this is a very exciting period in the history of our Association. We have now turned the corner financially and the sky is the limit in terms of how far IAFP can reach out to truly become the premier international food safety association. We have a great team behind us, and a fabulously committed and dedicated membership to guide us to where we want to be. We are in the driver’s seat and it is up to all of us to steer the ship in the right direction. I am very certain that as I hand over the gavel to our incoming President, Frank Yiannas, followed by Gary Acuff, Stan Bailey and Vickie Lewandowski, that we will be sailing in the right direction for a very long time. Thanks again for all the great memories and for your great support. It is truly appreciated!

Signing off for the last time.