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

The Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) proposes to use acombination of lead instructor training, strategic workshops, webinars, and networkstrengthening to reduce risks associated with importing food into the United States. Inpartnership with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Regional Office for LatinAmerica and the Caribbean, the Produce Safety and the Preventive Controls Alliances andother strategic partners, a diverse group of stakeholders, including FDA regulatorycounterparts, academia, and industry representatives, will receive training in preventivecontrols for human foods, produce safety, and other key FSMA rules. Country-specific casestudies will augment and buttress official alliance curricula and allow trainees to applylearning in a relevant, practical manner. Beyond training, strategic workshops will providean opportunity for regulators from target countries to address specific technical issuesthrough official Alliance training materials. Webinars will augment training and strategicworkshops by providing the food safety community with technical resources they need tomaintain and continue their education.In addition to these three components, IICA proposes to strengthen communication andcohesion by leveraging investments made by the Preventative Controls and ProduceSafety Alliances. Specifically, IICA plans to work with both Alliances to ensure that LatinAmerican trainees have access to translated versions of relevant communications andmaterials. We see real value in using the networks developed during training programs topromote information sharing and cohesion within and between countries. In this way, weforesee a strengthening of the food safety community across the Americas.Through these interventions, IICA will develop a Cadre of Food Safety Experts in keyexporting countries, with the goal of decreasing risks associated with non-compliant foodproducts entering the United States. IICA will measure success by evaluating the outcomesand impact of all activities conducted under this project and will make programmingadjustments as needed.