Risk Management

FDA unveils Food Traceability Final Rule

Wed, 16 Nov 2022 19:01:27 GMT

The Food and Drug Administration released its 600-plus page Food Traceability Final Rule on Nov. 15, 2022. The weighty tome outlines the FDA’s additional record-keeping requirements for manufacturers, processors, packers and shippers of foods on the FDA’s Food Traceability List, which includes fresh produce staples. Foods subject to the final rule requirements were determined based on factors Congress identified in Section 204 of the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act.

“To help ensure the safety of food and its ingredients through all steps in its journey, we must get better at following its movement. It’s just that simple,” Frank Yiannas, FDA deputy commissioner for food policy and response, said in a stakeholder call following the announcement.

At the heart of the final rule is the expectation that individuals contacting food will record critical facts associated with key milestones in the food supply chain journey, such as harvesting or cooling. Specifically, the FDA expects persons contacting food on the Food Traceability List to record “key data elements” at “critical tracking events” and provide this information to the FDA within 24 hours or a pre-arranged timeframe.

“Having this information is going to let us alert the public more rapidly to avoid certain food in the event of a food outbreak,” Yiannas said. “It’s going to allow us to remove contaminated food quicker from the marketplace as a secondary prevention, and it’s going to help us become more effective at rapidly evaluating why the outbreak happened in the first place. We’ll be able to conduct root cause analysis so that we can prevent these outbreaks from happening again.”

This rule will cover domestic production throughout the entire food supply chain, as well as foreign companies producing food for consumption in the U.S.

What is the Food Traceability List?

The Food Traceability List is the FDA’s roundup of specific foods that require additional record-keeping requirements under the FDA’s Food Safety Modernization Act Section 204 and includes the many fresh produce commodities.

According to the FDA’s Katie Vierk, director of the division of public health informatics and analytics, the foods on the list were determined using a risk ranking model that considered factors such as frequency of outbreaks and occurrences of illnesses, as well as criteria such as the likelihood of contamination and potential for pathogen growth.

Key dates to know

Jan. 20, 2023: Estimated date that the Final Rule goes into effect, following a 60-day waiting period after publication.
Jan. 20, 2026: Enforcement date. Compliance and record-keeping requirements go into effect.

What this means for fresh produce

“Rule 204 will go a long way toward enabling faster response to recalls and outbreak investigations, ultimately protecting public health and fostering consumer confidence,” Alyson Sharron, vice president of marketing at iFoodDS, told The Packer. “While the compliance date of Jan. 20, 2026, is seemingly light-years away, Rule 204 is complex — especially for grocers, foodservice operators, processors and independent distribution centers.”

Jason Varni, senior director of solutions at iTradeNetwork, noted that many companies already collect the data they need for compliance with Section 204. Further, he’s encouraged by the concerted effort from groups like GS1, International Fresh Produce Association and Canadian Produce Marketing Association to provide guidance on data sharing across the supply chain.

“The FDA was very measured in taking into account the feedback and concerns it received over the past two years from those subject to the FSMA 204 rule. It has been reorganized in several ways to make compliance less complicated and more approachable,” Varni told The Packer. “It will allow companies to find manageable ways to capture, store and share the required Key Data Elements with their trading partners.”

The final rule was informed by over 1,100 stakeholder comments, according to the FDA. The agency took the feedback into consideration when drafting requirements, timelines and exceptions. The FDA says its aim is to create a universal traceability language through FSMA rulemaking. This vision, leveraged with greater tech-enabled traceability capabilities and compliance expectations, will “connect the dots and allow traceability to scale a little bit easier,” Yiannas said.

How to prepare for compliance

“IFPA is committed to working with the FDA to help our members understand and comply with the requirements of the final rule,” Ed Treacy, vice president of supply chain and sustainability at the International Fresh Produce Association, said in a news release. “We appreciate that the major concerns we had about the draft rule have been addressed. We encourage our members to participate in upcoming opportunities to learn more about how this rule impacts their business.”

According to Sharron at iFoodDS, businesses that begin the process of implementing record-keeping plans now will gain a competitive advantage. “iFoodDS welcomes the opportunity to work with customers on solutions that work seamlessly with their workflows and enable supply chain collaboration, visibility and insight,” Sharron said.

Varni sees this moment as an opportunity to improve end-to-end traceability. “At iTradeNetwork, we have been working for over 20 years to connect companies upstream and downstream within the supply chain. We are very excited to partner with our member companies to not only achieve compliance for FSMA 204 rules and protect consumer health, but also realize the many ways these efforts will actually provide real ROI in terms of operational benefits and increased efficiencies,” he said.

The first step is to determine applicable food items included on the FDA Food Traceability List . Second, the FDA offers a tool to determine what, if any, compliance exemptions apply to specific operations.

The FDA will host a webinar on Dec. 7, 2022, providing an overview of the Final Rule.

On Dec. 14 at 12 p.m. EST, IFPA will host a virtual town hall, “FSMA 204 Traceability Final Rule,” moderated by Ed Treacy, IFPA traceability expert.

COVID-19 cases mount as summer harvesting heats up

Fri, 23 Sep 2022 21:28:12 GMT

Employer and worker advocate groups disagree over solutions as COVID-19 outbreaks escalate at farms and packinghouses while summer harvests kick into high gear — when more H-2A guest agricultural workers arrive in the U.S. and seasonal migrant workers move from one state to the next.

Some farmworker groups are skeptical that recent government health and safety guidelines will be enough to curtail the spread, and are unsure what the effect will be on the fresh fruit and vegetable industry.

Cramped housing and transportation remain trouble areas that employers can’t always control, despite implementing best practices of social distancing, cleaning and sanitizing based on the federal, state and local guidance available.

“Farmworkers’ low wages often forces them into crowded housing where it is difficult to practice social distancing, placing the workers and their children at great risk,” Bruce Goldstein, president of Farmworker Justice, said in an e-mail.

“Access to testing and health care is limited due to geographic isolation and lack of health insurance. Farmworkers are least able to absorb the extra costs imposed by the pandemic.”

Workers

The problems depend on the type of worker as well.

“Worker-advocate groups have opposed H-2A programs, but I’d say it gives employers more ability to manage the risks,” said Craig Regelbrugge, AmericanHort senior vice president of advocacy and research.

The H-2A program’s requirement for employer-provided housing and transportation means employers can better ensure guidelines are followed off the clock, such as spacing beds farther apart, leaving middle seats in vans empty and sanitizing multiple times a day in those locations.

Some employers have stopped H-2A worker grocery trips by sending a point person to take orders and bring groceries back. But 54% of farm laborers, graders and sorters are U.S. citizens, according to USDA Economic Research Service — workers who might need to arrange and pay for their own transportation and housing, often sharing with other workers and their families.

Most vegetable and fruit farmworkers have the advantage of open-air work in the fields, unlike meat-packing plants, said Michael Marsh, president and CEO of the National Council of Agricultural Employers.

But there are still social distancing challenges with harvesting, sorting, grading and packing, and employers are doing what they can to keep workers healthy because it’s in their interest as well, he said.

“For goodness sakes, farmers have been having to adjust everything they’ve been doing for years in a couple weeks. For the most part, they’ve done a very good job,” Marsh said. “I get frustrated because the biggest outbreaks we’ve had in this country have been in New York City, and I don’t believe there are many commercial farm operations there. There are people living on top of one another and public transportation in a crowded environment.”

The number of employer members on the council’s weekly H-2A labor conference call jumped from about 40 to about 150 since the pandemic began, Marsh said.

“They want to learn about the guidance, like what do you do if you have workers that are here and someone gets sick, how do you isolate them from other workers?” he said.

Testing is still not available at the level employers need it, Marsh said, although the supply of masks has improved since March.

The United Fresh Produce Association lobbied members of Congress to ensure that farmworkers could get more personal protective equipment and education and awareness could be disseminated to employers and employees, Robert Guenther, senior vice president of public policy, said in an e-mail.

“As the growing season continues to ramp up in many places around the country, we will apply what we have learned in the first few months of this crisis and build on those lessons to ensure the safety of our employees,” Guenther said.

Guidance

United Fresh has been collaborating with federal, state, and local governments to build employee safety guidance upon already existing best practices and scientifically valid information.

However, the federal guidance was a long time coming.

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued guidance June 2 — about 2½ months after the pandemic first took hold of the country.

“It’s pretty late in the game. Everybody’s been clamoring for guidance. In the industry, we’ve convened on this, but nobody wants to craft the guidance because of the legal implication if it conflicts with either federal authorities or the state authorities,” Regelbrugge said.

Farmworker advocacy leaders, including Goldstein, say enforceable mandates are needed rather than guidance to ensure compliance.

Regelbrugge thinks guidance is better than mandates because employers need the flexibility to adapt the principles to their own situations.

“Bad actors will get punished in the economic sense, if they get an outbreak,” Regelbrugge said.

In New York, 2,076 agricultural workers caught the new coronavirus by June 12, followed by California with 1,948 infected workers, according to Purdue University. Illinois, Texas, Iowa, Washington and Minnesota all have 1,000 or more infected workers.

The pandemic’s timing coincided with the intense agricultural production and harvesting period on California’s Central Coast, said Christopher Valadez, president of the Grower-Shipper Association of Central California. The state was among the first to issue shelter-in-place orders.

To prevent further spread of the virus, the association created a housing program to help COVID-19 positive or exposed agricultural employees safely isolate, Valadez said in an e-mail.

“The association also partnered with area hospitals to create an in-field education program where a physician or nurse will come onsite to discuss COVID-19, and more importantly, engage in dialogue with employees to address questions and provide education about practices to address risks both at the worksite, as well as at home,” Valadez said.

Having enough skilled labor for harvest season is never a guarantee, but even more tenuous since the outbreaks.

Some growers were concerned closed U.S. borders would prevent H-2A workers from arriving to do the harvesting until the Trump administration made special allowances for these temporary immigrants.

A clear indicator of the scarcity of farm labor is the five-fold increase of H-2A positions requested and approved in 14 years, from more than 48,000 positions certified in 2005 to almost 258,000 in 2019, according to the USDA Economic Research Service.

And often, workers want to show up to the fields too.

Employers can give temperature checks and health screenings before each worker clocks in for the day, but without guaranteed sick pay and help with healthcare costs, workers aren’t always motivated to reveal symptoms to their employers, making it difficult to catch the illness in time before it spreads to others, worker-advocate groups said.

And some local health departments don’t notify companies when an employee receives a positive test result, so the company has to rely on workers to inform them.

“I’m not suggesting that every single employer has been doing what they should, but workers and growers are so mutually dependent. It’s holy hell for a grower and worker if there’s a COVID-19 outbreak at the workplace,” Regelbrugge said.

His organization’s nursery and greenhouse growers, breeders and suppliers are trying to tackle the problem holistically, looking at improving best practices in four areas: restructuring the work itself for better sanitation and social distancing; managing group settings such as staggering lunch breaks and meetings; transportation; and housing.

COVID-19 outbreaks at fresh produce farms and facilities have grown:

June 11: More than 70% of an unspecified number of watermelon harvesters tested positive for COVID-19 in three northern Florida counties;
June 9: Agriculture workers comprise more than a third of the postive COVID-19 cases in Monterey County, Calif., where an estimated 45,000 farmworkers live permanently, a population that could swell to 60,000 as summertime guest workers arrive, according to the Los Angeles Times;
June 1: At least 38 strawberry farmworkers in Tennessee tested positive for the virus;
May 18: Initial results from 126 tests at the first Doctors Without Borders mobile clinics in Immokalee, Fla., an area with more than 15,000 migrant farmworkers, showed a “high positivity rate indicating ongoing community transmission,” according to the organization’s news release;
Mid-May: Six fruit companies held worker strikes starting mid-May over COVID-19 safety protections and pay, as confirmed cases among farm and fruit-packing workers grew to more than 500 in Yakima Valley, Wash., prompting Gov. Jay Inslee to issue requirements of free personal protective equipment requirements and other safety measures by June 3, according to company leaders and the Seattle Times;
May 13: 46 cases of COVID-19 were reported at four farms in North Carolina, nine of which were at a strawberry farm, according to a report by WXII NBC Channel 12;
May 13: More than 35 employees tested positive for the coronavirus at a Ventura County, Calif., avocado and other fruit, according to a report from ABC Channel 12 KCOY;
May 11 and 19: 109 migrant fieldworkers at two southern New Jersey produce farms, according to reports by NJ Spotlight, based in Montclair, N.J.;
May 8: 35 workers contracted the virus, confirmed leaders from a fresh-produce processing plant in Kenosha, Wis., to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel;
May 7: At least 125 workers at a strawberry and tomato greenhouse in central New York tested positive for the coronavirus, the company confirmed; and
April 22: 100 COVID-19 cases were linked to a Rhode Island produce-processing plant, according to a report by WJAR NBC Channel 10.

Related news:

COVID-19 Updates

Labor Updates

Employers face outbreaks, protests, safety hurdles amid COVID-19

Be A Good Neighbor: Steps to Help You Avoid Future Farm Litigation

Mon, 01 Nov 2021 19:10:14 GMT

With COVID-19 inspired population shifts and farmland changing hands, you likely have a new neighbor or two. Don’t let that relationship become problematic.

“Having a bad neighbor in the city is annoying,” says Cort Jensen, chief attorney for the Montana Department of Agriculture . “But having a bad neighbor as a farmer can affect your livelihood.”

Here’s how to be proactive and avoid lengthy and costly legal battles.

Communicate, communicate, communicate.

Introduce yourself and get to know your neighbors. “You don’t want the first interaction to be a negative one,” Jensen says. “If a barking dog or a broken pivot is the first interaction you have with a neighbor, it can sour all future conversations.”

Follow the “Golden Rule” and treat others like you want to be treated, adds Tiffany Dowell Lashmet , Texas A&M AgriLife Extension agricultural law specialist

“Nine times out of 10 these issues can be resolved if you sit down and sort these things out,” she says.

Know your local laws.

You don’t have to be an expert in nuisance law, but at least be familiar with your state’s right to farm statue, Lashmet says. “Then if you do end up in a dispute, you know the requirements and can make sure you are taking steps to comply; a basic knowledge of the law could go a long way.”

Document the dispute.

If you fear a disagreement will continue to grow, start taking notes. Cari Rincker, principal attorney with Rincker Law , suggests a journal or electronic notes. Include dates, locations, people, etc.

“Notes can be really helpful,” she says. “If it goes to litigation, they can help you recollect exactly what happened when.”

Stay calm.

Of course, a conflict with a neighbor is frustrating. “It’s OK to get mad, but then you better get smart,” Lashmet says. “Voicemails you leave and text messages you send could all become an exhibit in court one day. You don’t want to end up in a dispute looking like a crazy and angry person.”

Common Legal Issues that Arise

Most of the issues that surface between farmers and their non-farming neighbors fall into these categories, says Tiffany Dowell Lashmet, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension agricultural law specialist.

Nuisance Claims: These can include farming activities, such as odors, flies, dust and noise that interfere with how neighbors use their property.
Fence Law: Disagreements over fences frequently surface. Who has to build a fence? Are repairs or improvements needed to existing fences? Who pays for it? Where does the fence go? What happens if animals get loose?
Access Issues: These typically revolve around access easements and issues with trespassing.
General Inconveniences: This is more of a catchall category and can include legal activities that interfere with your neighbor’s enjoyment of their property. For example, you spread manure while they were hosting a family reunion. Or they set off fireworks that impacted a guided hunt you were holding.

Learn More
Listen to the “Ag Law Today” podcast where Cari Rincker and Cort Jensen discuss: How to Deal with Problematic Neighbors in Agriculture and Farming

Russia-Ukraine Crisis Shakes U.S. Markets, Gas and Oil Prices Surge

Thu, 22 Sep 2022 02:56:19 GMT

A war of words between Russia and the Ukraine is now actual war and has significant ramifications on the rest of the world, including the U.S.

There are major implications for U.S. markets, Jim Wiesemeyer, Washington policy analyst for Farm Journal, told AgriTalk guest host Clinton Griffiths Thursday morning.

“As we speak, the Dow’s down 730 points,” Wiesemeyer says. “You saw crude, energy prices in Europe this morning went up a little over 40% in one day. Energy prices from an agriculture perspective across the board are up because of the significance of Russia and Ukraine in the corn and wheat export arena, and over 75% of sunflower oil trade is from that region. So, yes, we have major implications.”

Along with the Dow, the S&P 500 dropped 2.5% on Thursday morning, bringing it deeper into a market correction. The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite sank about 1.5%.

According to a Moneywatch report, oil prices jumped 7.5% on Thursday morning, topping more than $100 a barrel for the first time since 2014, on concerns that the crisis in Eastern Europe could disrupt Russian supplies of crude.

Russia accounts for about 12% of the world’s oil supply and provides about 40% of gas to the European Union. Most of that fuel is delivered through pipelines, including in Ukraine, according to Eurasia Group.

Wiesemeyer says the U.S. and its allies need to watch for whether Russian President Vladimir Putin shuts Ukraine’s ports.

“That looks like that’s what he wants to do, which will throttle Ukraine commercially but will boost agriculture markets,” he says.

Wiesemeyer says he is watching China closely to see its decision during an upcoming vote in the United Nations National Security Council. “If they vote in favor of Russia, that’s one thing. Most people expect that. But if China abstains from voting, that tells you that they’re a little more cautious on this development than most people think right now,” he says.

To counter Putin, Wiesemeyer says President Joe Biden and U.S. allies will have to go after the financial system in Russia, called SWIFT, as they develop more sanctions against Moscow for its action in Ukraine.

SWIFT is a Belgium-based messaging network widely used by banks to send and receive money transfer orders or information. The organization is overseen by central banks in the United States, Japan and Europe.

“Germany is not in favor of (going after SWIFT) at this particular time, so NATO is not in agreement,” Wiesemeyer says. “Plus, you have to go after Putin’s own money around the world along with his key oligarch officials.”

A Reuters article says data from the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) shows that European lenders hold the lion’s share of the nearly $30 billion in foreign banks’ exposure to Russia.

Wiesemeyer says to keep an eye on the price of international crude oil, sometimes referred to as Brent Crude, because that has implications globally.

“If it goes close to $120 a ton, history shows that will lead into a world recession,” he says. “We don’t need that… it will increase inflation even higher.”

Wiesemeyer adds that while the U.S. government says the country has inflation of 7.5%, that’s “laughable.”

“In agriculture, it’s in the double-digit arena already,” he says.

BREAKING: Russian Invasion of Ukraine Sends Grain Markets Soaring

Jerry Gulke: 10 Thoughts on the Paradigm Shift in Global Agriculture

AgWeb Live: Analysis and Market Reaction to the Russian Invasion of Ukraine

30 Minutes With Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins In Her First Week On the Job

Wed, 19 Feb 2025 21:23:17 GMT

Since Saturday, Nov. 23, 2024 , Brooke Rollins has been focused on how to build the teams and the plans that impact the trajectory of agriculture and rural America. On that day, while en route with her husband and four teenagers in their motor home to Auburn, Ala., for the Texas A&M football game, she got a call from now President Donald Trump. The purpose of his call: She was his top choice to fill his final significant cabinet position, Secretary of Agriculture.

Obviously, she had to wait for confirmation, which came last week on Feb.13 when the Senate overwhelmingly confirmed her as the 33^rd Secretary of Agriculture , but since that Saturday before Thanksgiving, she’s been on the go with an accelerated enthusiasm to understand the significant challenges facing rural communities that lost 147,000 family farms between 2017 and 2022 and why the cost of inputs are up 30% as exports are down $37 billion this year and likely to fall further in the months to come.

“This is a crisis, and this is something that I understand inherently,” Rollins said to kick off Top Producer Summit in Kansas City on Tuesday. “My promise to you is this, and my commitment will never waver, that every minute of every day for the next four years I will do everything within my power, with hopefully God’s hand on all of us and our work, to ensure we are not just entering the golden age for America, as my boss, President Trump, likes to say, but we are entering the golden age for agriculture.”

What Has Rollins Been Up to the Past Four Years?
Secretary Rollins and President Trump have worked together for almost eight years. She was in the West Wing with him for years two, three and four of his first term running his domestic policy agenda.

“This real estate guy from New York City brought that vision to life, and then in the last term, was able to really do some remarkable things,” Rollins said in regard to President Trump returning power to the people who just want a chance at the American dream. “I call it the great pause, the four years in between term one and term two. But I think the great pause allowed very intentional planning. It allowed a courageous and bold leader in President Trump to become a fearless leader and to do everything he can to bring America back to greatness.”

In the “dark days of January 2021,” as she described, Secretary Rollins helped launch the America First Policy Institute, a think tank established by former Trump officials to promote conservative policies. The idea was that those policies that made America great in Trump’s first term would continue indefinitely, not just for a second term, but for four years, eight years or 36 years, Rollins described.

First Week On the Job
Since being confirmed last week, Secretary Rollins has been in the Washington, D.C., USDA office for a few hours, but most of her time has been spent in Kentucky at National Farm Machinery Show in Louisville and Gallrein Farms and in Kansas visiting Finney’s County Feeder, High Plains Ponderosa Dairy and the National Beef Packing Plant .

Describing herself as “a reader and a studier,” Rollins seems adamant to hear firsthand from farmers and ranchers. She referenced her visits to the dairy farm and National Beef facility as inspiring, in a good way but also in a way that helps her understand the real challenges at hand.

Speaking to the crowd at Top Producer Summit, she shared her appreciation for the “entrepreneurial American game changers” who are doing their part to feed the world.

“It is so inspiring and a reminder of the very beginning of our country.” Rollins said. “Our revolution was fought by farmers, our Founding Fathers, like Thomas Jefferson and George Washington. The backbone of the great American experiment is this community.”

Thank you @topproducermag for hosting @RogerMarshallMD and me in Kansas City, Missouri, with 1,000 of the Top Producers from across the US to talk about issues like expanding trade access and cutting regulatory red tape for farmers.

Biden’s ZERO trade deals and inflationary… pic.twitter.com/ejMxKxkRMG
— Secretary Brooke Rollins (@SecRollins) February 19, 2025

Farmer Q&A
Watch and listen to what Secretary Rollins, as well as Sen. Roger Marshall of Kansas, had to say on stage at Top Producer Summit about these 7 topics:

Trade and tariffs — “ Let’s go barnstorm the world , and let’s go find some more trade partners and access [to market opportunities],” Rollins said.
Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) efforts and modernizing USDA — “DOGE is a very valid and important effort across all government. The stories of waste and abuse were really just, not USDA specific but across government, beginning,” Rollins said.
Federal programs, such as CSP and EQIP — “Our commitment is that if there have been commitments made, those will be honored. Getting our arms around all of that right now is really, really, important. Again, going back to the President’s heart and commitment to our farmers, I feel confident we will be able to solve any issues that are in front of our ag community, that are potentially being compromised by the DOGE effort, while at the same time recognizing how very, very important it is,” Rollins said.
Future of USDA — “There’s no question USDA needs some modernization. I’m just beginning to lean into that as well,” Rollins said. USDA has 106,000 employees and 29 departments. “The Secretary is taking over a department where only 6% of the [D.C.] people work in the office,” Marshall added.
Renewable fuels — Prior to President Trump’s first term, he was “the first major candidate to support biofuels, and I think that carried him through Iowa in many ways. … We’ve got E15 year-round. I think that gives us some certainty as well. … The President is supporting that. I think we’re trying to figure out how to save 45Z, but we can’t let China benefit from it. Right now, China is benefiting more from [45Z] than my farmers and ranchers are, so we’ve got to fix that,” Marshall says.
Immigration policies and availability of long-term labor — “I have a full-bodied understanding of the challenges within the labor market, and I believe the President does too. … I believe that we will very soon be talking about it again. Clearly, the H-2A program needs significant reform, and Lori Chavez-DeRemer, she’s going through the [confirmation] process right now. … Hopefully she’ll get her vote very soon. We’ve got a lot of work to do,” Rollins said.
Trump’s cabinet members — “Our cabinet is comprised of people that have been working together and have been friends and colleagues for years, with a few exceptions. Bobby Kennedy is a new friend, but Lee Zeldin and I worked together in America First Works and America First Policy Institute for the last almost four years, Linda McMahon in education and John Brooks — these are our people,” Rollins said.