The University of Maryland is conducting a food safety survey to better understand how the FDA’s Food Safety Modernization Act proposed produce rule will impact you. The goal is to identify the current usage and cost burden of the kinds of food safety risk-reduction measures specified by the rule to determine how the rule will affect different types of growers.

This survey is intended for farm owners and managers growing vegetables or fruit. It takes about 10 minutes to complete, and it will remain open through the end of March. This research is very policy-relevant and could help guide future produce safety legislation, so all vegetable and fruit growers are encouraged to participate.

Participants have the opportunity to enter a drawing for a free Apple iPad after completing the survey.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact Professor Erik Lichtenberg by email at elichten@umd.edu or telephone at (301) 405-1279. And thanks for your help!
SURVEY LINK: http://www.arecdept.umd.edu/foodsafety
PASSWORD: VGANJ

An on-farm food safety training for both wholesale and retail producers will be held on Wednesday, February 25th at the Rutgers Snyder Research Farm in Pittstown, NJ. This workshop will focus on Good Agricultural Practices. The afternoon session will offer two tracks: third party audit specific information, and food safety plan writing.  

To register please call the Rutgers Cooperative Extension office of Cumberland County at 856-451-2800 x1.

The newly revised proposed Produce Rule is drastically different than the original provisional rule. Growers are encouraged to comment on the changes, and respond to several questions that the FDA has about animal based compost requirements. Please consider commenting – comments are due by December 15, 2014.

In the previously published FSMA proposed Produce Rule, regulations for animal based composts required a wait period of nine months for raw manure applications (not composted or composted in a non-approved manner). The revised rule recognizes the need for additional research and risk assessments, and has withdrawn the 9-month interval between the application of raw manure and crop harvest. This rule will be amended once sufficient research has been conducted and evaluated. The FDA has stated that “At this time, the FDA does not intend to take exception to farmers complying with the USDA’s National Organic Program standards, which call for a 120-day interval between the application of raw manure for crops in contact with the soil and 90 days for crops not in contact with the soil.” The 45-day interval between application of compost and crop harvest, specific to previously specified composting methods, has also been withdrawn.

The FDA is seeking comments on requiring the adherence to the NOP 120-day interval standards, the prevalence of animal based manures in composts, and information on barriers that will be faced for farms transitioning from raw animal manure use to only composted animal manures.

The newly revised Produce Rule is drastically different than the original provisional rule. Growers are encouraged to comment on the changes, and respond to several questions that the FDA has about water microbial requirements. Comments are due by December 15th.

The Produce Rule previously required farms to sample surface water used for irrigation (water that would come in contact with the harvestable portion of the plant) every seven days. For example: irrigation pond water that is used for overhead irrigation of blueberries or pond water that is used in pesticide application sprays on tomatoes. This requirement has changed, growers will need to create a baseline survey of the surface water and conduct annual sampling of that water. To create the baseline survey a farm using surface water would need to sample a minimum of 20 times over a two year period. The geometric mean will need to be calculated from these 20 samples to identify the [Read more…]

Comments on the revisions made to the produce safety rule are due on December 15th. Regular posts will be made to the Plant and Pest Advisory focusing on the changes that have been made. Please consider commenting on the produce rule!

The way that the FDA defines “farm” is important in determining what types of production activities would qualify a farm to comply with additional regulations, specifically the Preventive Controls FSMA rule. Compliance with the Preventive Controls rule would require a Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point plan.  The revisions regarding these definitions are now much more specific and offer broader exemption of certain farm activities from the Preventive Controls rule. Previously a “farm” would have been required to register as a food facility and comply with the Preventive Controls rule if it packed or held raw agricultural commodities grown on another farm. Packing and holding are now considered normal farm activities and would not, in most cases, require a farm to comply with the Preventive Controls rule. Additionally, gathering, washing, trimming of outer leaves of, removing stems and husks from, sifting, filtering, threshing, shelling and cooling of raw agricultural products are examples of harvesting and are also exempt from the Preventive Controls rule. The transformation of a raw agricultural commodity into a processed food would be still be subject to the Preventive Controls rule.

Comments on the revisions made to the produce safety rule are due on December 15th. Regular posts will be made to the Plant and Pest Advisory focusing on the changes that have been made. Please consider commenting on the produce rule!

Changes to Calculating Farm Sales for FSMA Compliance

The previous version of the produce rule set compliance thresholds based on total food sales values for a farm operation. This included all human and animal foods sold at the farm. The revised rule states that compliance threshold values will be determined by “average annual monetary value of produce.” This change was made as a result of many comments on the subject and will reduce the number of farms in New Jersey that will be required to comply with FSMA.