Food Safety Preventive Controls and Produce Safety Standards: Building Competency in Latin America in Support of the U.S. Food Safety Modernization Act

Given the importance of the region in exporting human food to the United States, FDA proposes working with a multilateral institution in the region, specifically the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA), to develop an expert cadre to foster FSMA standards implementation. IICA has been a strong U.S. government partner in Latin America and the Caribbean and can effectively play a pivotal role in FSMA training in the region. The activities undertaken under this Cooperative Agreement would be targeted to training FDA’s regulatory counterparts who commit to doing further training in their respective countries, academia, and industry representatives. By training regulators, IICA would be providing up-to-date information on FDA FSMA requirements, as well as good agricultural practice knowledge. If regulators or appropriate government institutions become trainers of the Alliance curriculum, they could possibly offer the training at lower costs, which can be a prohibitive factor for smaller business entities in understanding and implementing FSMA produce safety standards.