Agricultural Water Use in U.S. Fresh Produce Growing Operations – Part II: Assessing Contamination Risks from Microbiological Hazards

In this second part of a series on agricultural water use in fresh produce growing operations, we explore the elements of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s requirements for inspection, monitoring, and maintenance of agricultural water systems and for a written agricultural water assessment as promulgated in subpart E of the Produce Safety Rule. Although inspecting and monitoring agricultural water systems has typically been a routine activity for produce growers, the requirement to write and perform an agricultural water system assessment is new and shifts growers’ food safety efforts away from water quality testing to identifying sources of microbial hazards and evaluating the likelihood that those hazards will contaminate the water supply. To this end, we reviewed scientific studies that provide information and insights relevant to these activities to assist growers in their efforts to comply with the rule’s requirements and better manage the microbial quality of their agricultural water systems. Studies exploring the microbial quality and management of numerous types of water systems (e.g., drinking, agricultural, recreational, watershed, etc.) provide practical, science-based information that growers can apply to inspection and monitoring activities and when assessing the likelihood that human pathogens in the production environment will contaminate their agricultural water.