Colorado Department of Agriculture Implementation of Animal Feed Regulatory Program Standards

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Implementation of the Animal Feed Regulatory Program Standards (AFRPS) Project (U18) Colorado Department of Agriculture Inspection & Consumer Services Division CDA-ICS Animal Feed Regulatory Program Project Summary/Abstract The Colorado Department of Agriculture (CDA) is committed to complete implementation of the FDA’s Animal Feed Regulatory Program Standards (AFRPS) as part of the critical elements of creating a national, fully-integrated feed safety system. The CDA currently has two FDA feed inspection contracts (Medicated Feed and BSE/Feed Safety) in place and we have eleven (11) staff members that are FDA-credentialed inspectors. The Animal Feed Program (“the Feed Program”) and the Biochemistry Laboratory (BCL) are organizational units within the CDA’s Inspection & Consumer Services Division (“the Division”). The Feed Program is applying for FDA funding under this cooperative agreement to enhance our program by working towards complete implementation of the Animal Feed Regulatory Program Standards (AFRPS). The Feed Program has completed the initial AFRPS assessments and has identified deficiencies within the program. An improvement plan has been developed to correct these deficiencies for each of the standards within AFRPS. The cost of implementing AFRPS is burdensome and consumes funds from the Feed Program licensing and tonnage fees that would otherwise go into feed sampling and testing. CDA is enthusiastic about this opportunity for FDA support to off-set some of these costs and enhance our feed inspection program. A significant challenge to the Feed Program is finding dedicated time and resources to develop program standards while at the same time meeting the day-to-day workload demands of the program. Receiving this cooperative agreement would provide additional resources, specifically in areas of training, auditing, and developing policies and procedures. Currently, the Feed Program does not have enough staff focused solely on making these improvements. This grant would provide additional focused resources for implementation. Another significant challenge is in providing the funds necessary to send inspectors to training. This cooperative agreement would significantly increase our ability to develop an inspection staff trained in the Standard 2 curriculum.