Youth, Family, and Contextual Characteristics Predicting Violence Exposure: Disruptive

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The University of Alabama at Birmingham

Improving the Nutrition and Health of CARICOM Populations under

The Canadian International Food Security Research Fund

Sub-theme:

Food Safety / Postharvest

Neela Badrie1, Sophia Balfour1

1Department of Food Production

Faculty of Food and Agriculture

University of the West Indies

St. Augustine, Republic of Trinidad and Tobago

Correspondence: neela.badrie@sta.uwi.edu

Background Study Objectives

“Food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical

and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet

their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy

life” (World Food Summit Plan of Action, 1996).

In Trinidad and Tobago, there are different channels for fresh

produce on its way to the consumer’s kitchen, so it is important to

identify and characterize these routes in order to understand and

control losses.

The typical distribution chain of fresh produce can be grouped into

3 major stages namely production, marketing and consumption. The

production stage includes all activities that occur at or near the farm

gate including harvesting, cleaning, sorting, and in some cases

packing and transportation.

Monitoring losses along the distribution chain is critical for

developing conservation techniques and for specifying appropriate

interventions to ensure high quality and safety of products in Trinidad

and Tobago.

The University of the West Indies, St Augustine in collaboration with

Mc Gill University, Canada has undertaken a project which aims at

improving the nutrition and health of CARICOM populations with a

systematic approach to food availability, access, safety and quality.

Research Approach

The objectives of this study are to:

Develop food safety and quality guidelines for pre

and postharvest activities as well as checklists for

monitoring the activities;

Evaluate the influence of improved handling practices

based on the adoption of international standards and

checklists

The crops selected for study in Trinidad and Tobago

were both open-field and protected agriculture tomatoes

and sweet peppers and open field pumpkins.

Funded by: Research Partner:

Pumpkin used for quality

measurements

Tomatoes used for quality

measurements

Food safety and postharvest guidelines

were developed based on Codex Alimentarius

standards. The checklists for monitoring and

gathering of information on food safety and

postharvest practices were based on the

GlobalGAP checklist format. These checklists

were issued to farmers as well as caterers,

and included topics on crop production,

harvesting, packaging, transportation and

kitchen practices.

Crops were sampled at the farm and

storage area for quality measurements such

as unit weight, diameter, length and width,

surface and internal temperature, Brix, pH,

instrumental colour, firmness, bio-yield point

and observations for diseases or defects.

Then, the cooked crops were sampled at the

caterers for microbiological determination of

total aerobic count, Staphylococcus spp.,

Escherichia coli spp. and Salmonella spp.

Sweet peppers used for quality

measurements

Training Workshop of all agri-

sector stakeholders including

farmers

Participants taking a brix

measurement at Training

Workshop

Ms. Balfour taking instrumental

colour measurement on sweet

peppers

Target Groups

This study targets all agri-sector stakeholders including

farmers, food service caterers, undergraduate and

postgraduate students, agricultural officers,

researchers, field technicians, value-added enterprises

and householders.