USDA Survey of Produce growers before the Implementation of FSMA

U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Economic Research Service (ERS) teamed with USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) to survey produce growers about their food safety practices before the implementation of the Food Safety Modernization Act’s (FSMA) Produce Rule (PR). The results showed that many producers that would be covered by the PR already had some food safety practices in place. Larger growers had adopted food safety practices at higher rates than smaller growers. Because growers with higher sales generally operated more produce acres, the share of acres on which food safety practices were in-place far exceeded the share of growers who implemented food safety practices. Most farms covered by the PR will need to make some changes to meet the standards. Smaller farms will need to make more changes than larger farms. Even growers who engaged in a particular food safety practice may not have performed it to the specifications of the PR. Audited growers spent on average about 2 to 10 times more on measured costs than growers without audits, depending on their PR and size coverage category. @ https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/publications/89721/eib-194.pdf?v=43313