Implementation of U.S. Food Safety Modernization Act - Identifying, Researching, and Implementing Alternative Methods to Expand the Reach across the Global Supply Chain

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Project Abstract - IICA With this current proposal, the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) seeks to build on previous successes and implement high-impact interventions that directly reduce risks associated with importing food into the United States. Specifically, we propose to develop and test alternative technologies to greatly augment the availability of high-quality training opportunities using the existing Produce Safety Alliance (PSA) curriculum and other training materials, such as the On-Farm Readiness Review (OFRR), in support of the FSMA Produce Safety Rule (PSR). We will leverage the wide availability of mobile telephones throughout the Americas and develop web- and application-based training materials that not only incorporate requisite training per the curriculum but also provide easy links to relevant portions of the rule and other important documents so that the user can refresh their knowledge as needed. While a variety of training materials are available in English, we propose to strengthen the reach and impact of existing and new materials by making them available in Spanish as well. This approach will take advantage of the prevalence of access to mobile technology throughout the Americas to create a group of tools that address the needs of adult learners and non-traditional students. We will use well-tested approaches and learning techniques to ensure sustainable knowledge building and understanding around FSMA implementation. Working with partners in academia, we will design controlled experiments to test the efficacy of alternative training materials against in-person training techniques to better understand what is and what may be possible to achieve through alternative approaches. Using an iterative process, we will develop alternative training materials, package them into new delivery methods, and test and validated both the materials and delivery approaches through pilot projects. Based on the results of these pilot projects, we will modify and further test our approaches, with the goal of releasing final, validated products to a large, hemispheric audience. These “final” products will then be evaluated over the life of the project to ensure their continued efficacy and provide inputs for corrective actions. IICA is the specialized agency for agriculture within the Inter-American System. Counting on over seventy-five years of experience and a network of over thirty offices across the Americas, IICA is an ideal partner to support FDA to address technical capacity needs around FSMA implementation by foreign governments and their industries in Latin America. IICA is and has been a strong U.S. government partner in Latin America and the Caribbean for many years and has the demonstrated capacity to implement FSMA training in the region.