February 13, 2018
Food safety is always on farmers’ minds, but this year – with the Farm Bill on the horizon and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) implementing its new Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) regulations – farmers will be closely following federal food safety policy debates. Last week, farmers and food safety advocates came to Washington […]
January 8, 2018
As we enter the first year of compliance under Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) new Produce Safety Rule, introduced as part of the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), producers continue to experience frustration and confusion regarding FDA’s distinction between a “farm” and a “facility.” Since the Produce Safety Rule was first introduced, this seemingly innocuous […]
October 11, 2017
For family farmers, fall is one of the busiest times of the year. While farmers are keeping busy harvesting their fields, food and farm advocates have been occupied with their own bumper crop of U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) program announcements. In fact, in the past two weeks, USDA awarded approximately $40 million in grants […]
July 24, 2017
Now that the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) new food safety rules have been finalized and the compliance clocks have begun ticking, one of most common questions we hear at the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) is: Who is going to be enforcing these new rules on farms, and how? While many of the details […]
July 21, 2017
Following closely on the heels of the House Agriculture Appropriation Subcommittee’s funding bill, which was approved by the full House Appropriations Committee last week, the Senate Appropriations Committee has advanced its agriculture appropriations funding measure for fiscal year (FY) 2018. The Senate bill moved quickly through the Subcommittee and full Committee approval process, with just […]
June 28, 2017
The United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) recently released a Request for Applications (RFA) for the Specialty Crop Multistate Program (SCMP), a component of the Specialty Crop Block Grant Program. Approximately $7 million will be available to fund projects from state departments of agriculture on a competitive basis, which will in […]
June 22, 2017
In 2006, an E. coli outbreak linked to spinach grown and packed in California resulted in the infection of nearly 200 people across the country; the outbreak was so serious that in some cases the infections resulted in deaths. This serious food safety lapse was one of the key catalysts for introducing stricter requirements for […]
May 10, 2017
For farms and small businesses trying to determine whether and to what extent they may be impacted by the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) new food safety rules, FDA has recently published an informative website where producers can get some added assistance. If you recall from our previous posts about FDA’s Food Safety Modernization Act […]
April 27, 2017
With new federal food safety requirements recently finalized for produce farmers and food processors, there is a critical need for targeted food safety outreach, education, and training. In fact, when Congress passed the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), it authorized the development of a brand-new competitive grants program specifically dedicated to providing the education and […]
April 20, 2017
Farmers have always cared about food safety, because they care about the customers who enjoy their products. In 2010 Congress passed the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), which farmers must now learn to navigate in order to keep their operations running smoothly. FSMA represented the first real overhaul of our nation’s food safety practices since […]