Agricultural Secretary Tom Vilsack recently announced the USDA’s plan to provide up to $200 million in assistance to specialty crop growers who incur on-farm food safety program expenses to get or renew a food safety certification. The Food Safety Certification for Specialty Crops program is designed to offset costs to comply with regulatory needs and market-driven food safety certification requirements.
Vilsack announced the program when touring a family-owned farm in New Hampshire.
“The ongoing economic challenges due to the COVID-19 pandemic have created substantial financial challenges for small and very small producers to meet regulatory requirements and access additional markets,” Vilsack said while at the farm. “These challenges were particularly acute for specialty crop producers, many of whom needed to quickly and completely pivot their operations as demand shifted away from traditional markets, like restaurants and food service. As we build back better, our food systems must be both more inclusive and more competitive. By helping mitigate the costs of on-farm food safety certification, the FSCSC program will support fair, transparent food systems rooted in local and regional production and provide small-scale producers a real opportunity to bring home a greater share of the food dollar and help create jobs.”
The program will assist farms with crop operations that incurred eligible expenses in 2022 (after June '21) or 2023. For each year, a percentage of the operation’s cost of renewing or receiving their certification, as well as other related expenses, will be covered.
Eligible expenses include:
• developing a food safety plan for first-time food safety certification,
• maintaining or updating an existing food safety plan,
• food safety certification,
• certification upload fees,
• microbiological testing for products, soil amendments, and water,
• training.
Interested crop growers can apply by completing the FSA-888, Food Safety Certification for Specialty Crops Program application.
Related: USDA, Ukraine Team to Fight Global Food Insecurity; WTO Leader Forewarns Global Food Crisis