April 7, 2022
On March 15th President Biden signed H.R. 2471, the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2022, also known as the fiscal year (FY) 2022 Omnibus. In this blog post, NSAC examines the content of the FY 2022 agriculture appropriations bill and how NSAC’s appropriations priorities fared in the process.
July 22, 2021
On June 30th, the House Appropriations Committee marked up and approved its fiscal year (FY) 2022 Agriculture Spending bill. The full House Appropriations Committee markup and approval followed the Agriculture Subcommittee’s approval of the funding bill on Friday, June 12. The agriculture appropriations bill includes funding for a wide range of farm and food programs, […]
February 10, 2021
Farmers are working to improve food safety on the farm, and prepare for Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) inspections, but this requires both assistance and resources. We are excited that the Food Safety Outreach Program (FSOP) applications have just opened up and will provide organizations with funding to assist and help farmers and small food businesses with […]
January 12, 2021
At the end of 2020, the United States Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) awarded funds through the Food Safety Outreach Program (FSOP) to several organizations who plan to provide educational resources and assistance to farmers and food businesses working to improve their food safety practices.
December 1, 2020
NSAC has identified the most pressing issues facing the sustainable agriculture community for the Biden-Harris Administration to prioritize in order to rebuild our food system. At the top of the list are issues like addressing the climate crisis, building a more resilient food supply chain, addressing longstanding issues of racial inequities, strengthening anti-trust enforcement, and scaling up investments in public research.
February 6, 2020
Nearly ten years after the passage of the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is still issuing new rules. With the temporary lull in FSMA-related policy activity coming to an end, there will be renewed need for public action on FSMA rulemakings once they are issued later this year. In […]
August 16, 2019
The rising demand for local, niche meat and poultry over the past decade has led to ever-increasing reliance on the country’s few small-scale independent processing plants that operate outside of the broader commodity meat sector. When one of these small plants is shutdown or suspended, therefore, the impact can be resounding, having many of the […]
July 10, 2019
Last week, the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) brought in over a dozen farmers and advocates for the Coalition’s second “farmer fly-in” of 2019. Fly-in advocates from ten different states across the country came to DC to champion the federal programs important to them and their communities before congressional appropriators. Currently, Congress is negotiating federal […]
April 26, 2019
As implementation begins for the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) new Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) rules, farmers and food businesses are increasingly looking to Food Safety Outreach Program (FSOP)-funded programs for resources and training to help them come into compliance. FSOP is a federal grants program that funds community-based organizations, non-governmental organizations, cooperative extension, […]
April 11, 2019
The Food Safety Modernization Act’s Produce Safety Rule is complex. There are still questions about how it will be enforced for the first time and the required actions and tools farms need to comply. Some of these questions might be answered by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Draft Guidance on the Produce Safety […]