The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Organic Program (USDA’s NOP) has updated the Strengthening Organic Enforcement (SOE) final rule, which relates to the oversight and enforcement of the production, handling, and sale of organic products.
A recent workshop funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has identified several crucial working areas for mitigating the public’s exposure to toxic metals from the U.S. food supply, which is a pressing food safety issue. The workshop was conducted as part of the “Closer to Zero” initiative to address such exposure, in which USDA, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and other federal agencies are involved.
U.S. President Joe Biden recently signed the Fiscal Year (FY) 2023 Omnibus Appropriations Bill, which allocates $25.480 billion in total base discretionary funding for U.S. agencies that are responsible for agriculture and food safety, including the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Marketing Service (USDA’s AMS) has found the majority of fruits and vegetables in the U.S. to contain pesticide residues below the tolerances established by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), according to the agency’s Pesticide Data Program (PDP) summary for 2021.
On December 23, 2022, the Senate voted to confirm Dr. Jose Emilio Esteban as the USDA's Under Secretary for Food Safety. The action came on the last day before the 177th Congress expired.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Harmonized Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) Plus+, Version 3.0 audit standard has achieved Technical Equivalence acknowledgement against GFSI Benchmarking Requirements.
The meat and poultry industries are an interesting mix of conservative practices and innovation. This article examines five topics and their implications to protein food, including meat safety as a model for the produce industry; increased interest in Salmonella and Listeria; USDA proposed rulemaking for meat and poultry; the move toward aggregated sampling; and developing safety needs for tissue-cultivated products.
In this episode of Food Safety Matters, we interview Deborah Blum, author of The Poison Squad, which chronicles the passage of the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act and the work of its primary advocate, Dr. Harvey Wiley. Deborah discusses her most shocking discoveries about the 19th century diet, how the political and scientific landscape shaped food industry regulations, the role that media played in disseminating Dr. Wiley’s findings, and themes that can be observed from the events of The Poison Squad that are still relevant today.
We also spoke to Larry Keener, President and CEO of International Product Safety Consultants Inc., to get an industry professional’s point of view on the events of The Poison Squad, the evolution of food safety since that time, and the book’s themes that are still relevant today.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Marketing Service (USDA’s AMS) has announced that an additional $21.9 million of funding is being awarded to 111 grant projects through the Meat and Poultry Inspection Readiness Grant Program (MPIRG), bringing total funding to $54.6 million.