Path C Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food, and Forestry Cooperative Agreement Program with FDA to Implement a National Produce Safety Program

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Funding Opportunity PAR-21-174 Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food, and Forestry Project Summary The Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food, and Forestry proposes to continue our state Produce Safety Program to encourage the safe production of fresh fruits and vegetables and to promote compliance with the requirements of FDA’s Regulation “Standards for the Growing, Harvesting, Packing, and Holding of Produce for Human Consumption.” In order to accomplish this goal, we plan to: assess our produce farm landscape, establish a process to develop and maintain a produce farm inventory, develop and support the program’s infrastructure, formulate a multi-year plan, identify and collaborate with industry and educational partners, provide education and technical assistance to farming operations, perform outreach to inform the industry of the produce safety rule, build a complete farm inventory, inspect covered non-exempt farms for compliance with the produce safety rule, track and report aggregate data on program activities and inspections, and assess our ability to respond to a produce-related event/incident. The accomplishment of this goal will advance efforts for a nationally integrated food safety system by having the state produce safety program align with the FDA produce safety program. The funds that are made available through this cooperative agreement will allow our agency to implement multi-year, strategic plans to ensure continuous improvement and demonstrate we are moving towards the goals of improved produce safety and high rates of compliance with the Produce Safety Rule. Without the funds being made available through this funding opportunity our agency would be unable to undertake any part of attaining this goal. We are applying for grant Path C, as our state has authority to inspect and enforce compliance on produce farms for any federal program as listed in the Oklahoma State Board of Agriculture Powers of the Board in Oklahoma Statutes §2-2-4 #34 (http://webserver1.lsb.state.ok.us/OK_Statutes/CompleteTitles/os2.rtf). Using this statute, we promulgated rules to adopt the FDA’s Produce Safety Rule (21 CFR Part 112) in its entirety, as can be found in Oklahoma Administrative Code Title 35, Chapter 37, Subchapter 17: http://www.oar.state.ok.us/oar/codedoc02.nsf/All/E5747A97BE28EE9B86258602004B3563?O penDocument. We also intend to conduct joint inspections with FDA of sprout farms.