FDA Announces New Round of Funding to Support FSMA Education, Training, and Technical Assistance
The U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) is announcing $1.5 million of continued funding, in the form of cooperative agreements, to the University of Arkansas Indigenous Food and Agriculture Initiative and the National Farmers Union to enhance food safety under the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA).
These competitive funding opportunities were announced in November 2019 and are intended to support targeted outreach, education, and training to enhance food safety and FSMA compliance, with a focus on the produce safety and preventive controls for human foods rules. One cooperative agreement, awarded to the University of Arkansas Indigenous Food and Agriculture Initiative focuses on outreach, education, and training for Native American tribes, and the other was awarded to the National Farmers Union to support outreach, education, and training for local food producers and processors. Both awardees will continue to work toward meeting the unique needs of their target audiences while leveraging the use of materials developed by the FSMA alliances.
Local Food Producers Cooperative Agreement
The National Farmers Union was selected for funding having demonstrated their ability to enhance food safety through targeted outreach, education, and training to local food producers and processors including beginning and socially disadvantaged farmers, traditional farmers, urban farmers, small farmers and processors, and other supply-chain participants, through the National Farmers Union Food Safety Collaborative Project. Their work has included:
The award for the local food producers cooperative agreement will be for $1,000,000 for 1 year with the possibility of an additional year of support contingent upon satisfactory performance and the availability of federal funding.
Native American Tribal Cooperative Agreement
The Indigenous Food and Agriculture Initiative (IFAI) at the University of Arkansas has been selected for funding having demonstrated their ability to advance food safety through outreach, education, and training to Native American tribes. Their work has supported FSMA implementation through science-based food safety training, education, outreach, and technical assistance that takes into account tribal historical, cultural and regional agricultural production and processing practices which has included: