ARS: 50 years of research for the growing world - 50 Agricultural Research Service: 1953-2003

Agricultural Research, Nov, 2003 by J. Kim Kaplan

In 1953, farmers produced 17.3 bushels of wheat per acre, cows gave 645 gallons of milk per year, U.S. consumers spent 20 percent of their income for food, James Watson and Francis Crick unveiled the structure of DNA, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture formally created the Agricultural Research Service to be its chief in-house science agency.

In the 50 years since then, ARS has been a significant contributor to agricultural progress. Today, in 2003, wheat production per acre has more than doubled to 35.3 bushels per acre, milk production has tripled to 2,160 gallons per cow per year, food costs are down to less than 10 percent of income, and ARS has earned a worldwide reputation as a scientific organization whose research has benefited the farmer, the consumer, and the environment.

The list of the agency's accomplishments is virtually endless: Discovering two new forms of life, constructing the first gene maps of cattle, discovering boron is an essential trace nutrient for humans, testing the prototype laser-beam system for controlling subsurface drainage installation, developing the microinjection technique that moves a whole chromosome into a single cell of another plant, and eliminating screwworms from the United States and other countries are just a few highlights.

But it's not just specific accomplishments that are so important--though many of them have been critical to the continued vitality of U.S. agriculture and to meeting consumers' needs. ARS's work is an essential part of the long research continuum that allows us to become ever-better stewards of our land and water resources, introduce new products based on agricultural commodities, and make our food and agricultural products more affordable, safer, and more abundant.

Food Safety

Safer food at every stage of production--from the farmyard to the processing plant to the dinner plate--is just one area where ARS has made important contributions. For example, for decades, people were taught that cooking the pink out of hamburger eliminates any danger from E. coli O157:H7 and other pathogenic bacteria. But in 1998, an ARS scientist found color is not a reliable indicator, that only cooking by thermometer, to 160[degrees]F, can assure consumers of the safety of their ground beef.

"The research was originally stimulated by an incident in Seattle back in 1993. Then it took us a while to accumulate enough data to go in the face of what had been believed for so long," says now-retired ARS research food technologist Brad W. Berry. "But we were able to provide accurate and important information about what could be a dangerous problem."

Because of this research, USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service completely rewrote its hamburger cooking guidelines. consumer outreach materials, and the current regulations based on scientific facts.

Providing sound science on which regulatory agencies can base their decisionmaking has always been one of ARS's primary missions. For instance, most of the research that proved irradiation is an effective and safe method to sanitize meat came from an ARS laboratory. Today, irradiation is making millions of pounds of ground beef safer from bacterial contamination.

Sometimes, the agency's research in food safety is more basic. An important breakthrough in this area recently came from an ARS-led project that has sequenced the genomes of four Campylobacter and four Listeria serotypes. Campylobacter is believed to cause more than 2 million cases of foodborne illness in people each year, and more than 500 people die of listeriosis annually, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"Armed with this genetic information, we'll be able to identify specific bacteria. This will let researchers and epidemiologists truly trace back specific illness outbreaks and really learn exactly how contamination spreads," explains ARS Food Safety National Program co-leader James A. Lindsay. "This will be essential information for the epidemiologist to find out how and why people are exposed."

Now, taking food safety to the next level is cutting-edge ARS research that just reached the market--a new light-based scanner that can inspect beef carcasses for possible microbiological contamination by measuring changes in reflected light. The Sebastian, Florida-based eMerge Interactive, Inc., is already providing the handheld scanner to companies that account for more than 80 percent of the beef marketed in the United States.

"These sensors are going to have a very significant impact on the safety of food in the next 2 to 3 years," says Dell M. Allen, Vice President of Technical Services for Cargill Meats Solutions of Wichita, Kansas, one of the major companies implementing the new sensors. "It's going to allow the industry to do much more accurate checking than by visual inspection and make sure meat is free of contamination."

Animal Science

ARS's research has also contributed to improvements in every facet of beef production, Allen points out.

"Over the past 20 years, we've seen an increase of probably 50 to 70 pounds per carcass, which is one of the reasons that beef prices for consumers have stayed low," Allen says. "A lot of that weight increase is due to ARS's work over the years, especially in long-term projects like the germplasm evaluation program."