Fresh produce quality and condition inspection fees from the U.S. Department of Agriculture will increase 10% on Oct. 1.
The USDA announced the rates would rise from $191 per lot to $210.
The rates were published in a Federal Register notice. Audit verification services will rise from $108 to $115 by Oct. 1, a 6.4% increase.
The USDA said in the notice that the rates cover costs incurred by the agency to provide the services and to maintain operating reserves for each program as mandated by Congress.
In November 2014, the USDA published a final rule in the Federal Register that established standardized formulas for automatically calculating fees from the USDA Agricultural Marketing Service’s user-funded programs. Since then, the USDA has published the rates through a unified process for setting fees across all of its voluntary user-fee programs.
Current rates are on the AMS website.
