The Center for Food Safety and Security Systems (CFS3) was awarded a 2-Year extension in the amount of $4.6 million for their SCRI CAP grant “Developing Scientifically-based Consensus Food Safety Metrics for Leafy Greens and Tomatoes.” The original grant proposal was a 2-phase 5-year project that proposed to use greenhouse, field, and validation trials to test some of the current food safety metrics required by the government and industry. Phase 1 of the grant was initially awarded for 3-years in September 2011 for the research team to conduct the greenhouse and field trials portion of the project. The extension period, which will begin October 2014 and run through August 2016, focuses on working with industry partners and small to medium sized farmers and packers to conduct validation trials in the five research areas covered during the first three years of the project.
This multi-institutional project has been highly supported by both the produce industry and the FDA as the Food Safety Modernization Act Proposed Rule for Food Safety is moving closer to finalization. The research team has presented findings from the laboratory and field trials to the FDA on several occasions over the first three years of the project and has made a significant impact on the development and implementation of scientifically-supportable produce safety standards and metrics that will possibly influence the finalized FSMA produce safety rule. During the extension period of the project the research team hopes to validate metrics related to water sources, animal encroachment and adjacent land use, harvesting and processing, and temperature control in various regions of the United States in order to make more concrete recommendations to the produce industry and the federal government for proposed food safety metrics.
The project team includes researchers from University of Maryland – College Park, University of Delaware, The Ohio State University, University of Florida, University of California-Davis, University of Arizona, Rutgers University, University of Maryland – Eastern Shore, FDA and USDA BARC. To learn more about the SCRI project please visit www.cfs3.umd.edu/scri.