Food-safety professionals say improvements in food safety are helping to ensure that.

Dave Wolfgang, a senior research associate in veterinary science at Penn State University, said animal-health programs present a "win, win, win" situation. Animals are healthier than in the past; there is a safe, plentiful food supply; and high productivity benefits the producer.

Wolfgang is one of several members of Penn State’s agricultural and soil science staff working with government officials to educate providers about food safety. It’s a big effort in Pennsylvania, says Mary Pickels of the Tribune-Review.

Agriculture is the state’s largest industry, and Pennsylvania ranks high among those ushering food from farm to table. Production of dairy, eggs and poultry, beef and pork adds up to a combined gross income of $2.7 billion annually..

The basics — fresh air, good diet, room to roam and rest — are often the best ingredients. He said experimental vaccines and processing and packaging systems are being studied as other sources of protecting animal health.

Animal disease is still an issue, Wolfgang said. An animal may have a bug that it’s adapted to, but that would wreak havoc on the human gastrointestinal tract.

Some Penn State professors are working through outreach programs to educate the state’s farmers and producers about food safety.