Organic food producers are very pleased with the Food and Drug Administration’s revised provisions for the produce safety rule of the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA). 
“It’s a huge win,” says Gwendolyn Wyard, regulatory director of Organic Standards and Food Safety with the Organic Trade Association (OTA). These changes are about making sure the rules…
FDA Releases Four Revised FSMA Rules
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration published its revised provisions to four of the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) on Friday morning. Certain aspects of the rules for produce safety, preventive controls for human food, preventive controls for animal food, and Foreign Supplier Verification Programs (FSVP) have been modified to provide more flexibility to producers…
FDA to Issue Two Revised FSMA Rules Next Summer
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has announced that it will propose revised rule language and open another comment period on two of the proposed rules affecting farmers under the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA). FDA plans to issue revised language for the proposed rules on produce safety and preventive controls for human food by…
Many in Congress Want to Give FDA a 'Do-Over' on Draft Rules
Among nearly 20,000 written comments to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on draft rules regarding produce and preventive controls are letters from lawmakers on Capitol Hill. The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC), which is trying to nudge FDA into doing a second draft of the rules, made sure the media would notice several…
Pushback Begins Against FSMA On-the-Farm Rules
UPDATE: The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has extended today’s deadline for comments for both the produce rule and the preventive controls rule for one week to make up for time lost due to the website issues described below. FDA also announced that comments for the Environmental Impact Statement on the produce rule is …
Preventive Controls: Daunting for Some, Standard Procedure for Seafood
The concept of “preventive controls” is an anxiety-producing one for many FDA-regulated food companies right now as the agency prepares to issue a final rule that will make hazard-prevention measures mandatory for processing facilities. As Food Safety News reported last week, trepidation is especially high among smaller firms, which are balking at potential costs of …
Proposed Rule for Food Processors Alarms Some, Confuses Many
“Coming down like a ton of bricks.” “Complicated and interwoven.” “Costly.” “The end of many small- and mid-size farms and food processors.” “Never heard of it.” “A work in progress.” When asked about FDA’s new proposed rule for food processing facilities, that’s how a sustainable-agriculture advocate, a food-safety expert for a large fresh produce association,…
FDA's Preventive Controls: Moving to HACCP and Beyond
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has required meat and poultry facilities to operate under risk-prevention Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points systems since the late 1990s. But other than the seafood and juice industries, no food makers regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration have been asked to do the same. 
With the passage…