Assessment of Microbiological Food Safety Knowledge among Broiler Chicken Farmers and Contamination of Campylobacter spp. and Salmonella spp. in Broiler Meat from Dodoma City, Tanzania

Abstract

Background: Foodborne pathogen contamination in broiler chicken meat can occur at various points along the value chain, including production at the farm level. Farmers’ knowledge plays a vital role in maintaining microbiological food safety. Campylobacter and Salmonella are among the leading pathogenic bacteria associated with raw or undercooked chicken meat. Aim: To assess microbiological food safety knowledge among broiler chicken farmers and contamination of Campylobacter spp. and Salmonella spp. in broiler meat from Dodoma City, Tanzania. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted using a structured questionnaire to interview eighty-seven (n = 87) broiler chicken farmers. Additionally, a total of forty-five (n = 45) raw broiler chicken meat samples were randomly collected from various purposively selected production farms and analysed using microbiological standard methods (ISO 10272-1:2017 & ISO 6579-1:2017) for the detection of Campylobacter spp. and Salmonella spp. Results: In this study, 62.07%  of respondents demonstrated good microbiological food safety knowledge (95% confidence interval (CI): 48.06 - 69.18), 35.63% demonstrated moderate knowledge (95% CI: 28.62 - 49.54), while 2.3% demonstrated poor knowledge (95% CI: 0.91 - 5.51). Among all socio-demographic factors, only education level showed a significant association with farmers’ microbiological food safety knowledge (X2 = 6.25, p ˂ 0.05). Furthermore, Campylobacter spp. were detected in all (100%) of the analysed samples, with contamination levels exceeding the commonly recommended limit of 3 log CFU/g. The average Campylobacter spp. contamination was 5.30±0.23 log CFU/g. Salmonella spp. were detected in only two analysed samples, indicating a very low prevalence (4.44%). Moreover, all Salmonella-positive samples exceeded acceptable limits under the zero-tolerance policies of many food safety standards. Conclusion: This study generally revealed that farmers had good basic microbiological food safety knowledge; however, most of them lacked understanding of specific foodborne pathogens. Moreover, there was a high prevalence and contamination by Campylobacter spp. and a low prevalence of Salmonella spp. in the analysed samples. This suggests a heightened risk of campylobacteriosis outbreaks compared to salmonellosis from consuming undercooked broiler chicken meat. The results call for the need for targeted training and education programs which should be implemented to enhance farmers' microbiological food safety knowledge, alongside with strengthened knowledge on the importance of improving biosecurity and hygiene practices in reducing the risk of  pathogen contamination in broiler meat in production farms.