Author: Paul Vijayakumar
Planning Unit: Animal and Food Sciences
Major Program: Local Food Systems
Outcome: Intermediate Outcome
The FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA)is a federal law transforming the nation’s food safety system. The “Standards for the Growing, Harvesting, Packing, and Holding of Produce for Human Consumption”, aka “Produce Safety Rule (PSR),” establishes for the first time, science-based minimum standards for the safe growing, harvesting, packing, and holding of fruits and vegetables grown for human consumption. The rule is part of the agency’s ongoing efforts to implement the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act. Growers need to attend PSA Grower training in order to fulfill FSMA Produce Safety Rule regulatory requirement. The FSMA Produce Safety Rule requires at least one supervisor or responsible party from the farm complete a food safety training at least equivalent to that received under standardized curriculum recognized as adequate by FDA conducted by qualified trainers. In order to help plain community growers increase their confidence to prepare and implement FSMA-PSR regulations on their farm, a pilot food safety plan writing program was conducted at the Lincoln County Produce Auction in Crab Orchard in March of 2018. Course evaluations indicated that 83% of the participants would create or edit their current Food Safety Plan, 95% mentioned that the program was very educational and the subject matter was timely for the current FSMA regulation and 88% mentioned that they would implement what they learned in their farm operation.
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