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Source: NATIONAL SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE COALITION, 7/26/13
Earlier this year, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released new proposed regulations detailing standards for food safety on produce farms and in facilities that process food for people to eat. The rules are not yet final, and FDA is seeking comments from producers, processors, and stakeholders to help shape the final rules before they become law.
All of these rules are part of FDA’s implementation of the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), which President Obama signed into law in 2011. FSMA is the first major update of federal food safety laws since 1938, and it gives FDA broad new powers to prevent food safety problems, detect and respond to food safety issues, and improve the safety of imported foods.
FSMA Comment Period Extended
Today, FDA officially announced a final extension of the FSMA comment period deadline by an additional 60 days from September 16 to November 13.
The extension now also grants 120 days for comment on two more FSMA-related rules just released today. These two new proposed regulations — Foreign Supplier Verification and the Accreditation of Third-Party Auditors – require that importers verify their suppliers are employing prevention-based food safety practices and create a system for certifying third-party auditors.
Yet to come are proposed rules on traceability, animal feed, and an important provision Congress wrote into FSMA to clarify that farmers who primarily sell directly to consumers are exempt from FDA registration as “food facilities” and thus from FSMA rules that apply to such registered entities. No timeline for these missing pieces has been released.
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