FDA Human Foods Program Update: FY 2025 Priority Deliverables

This week, the FDA’s Human Foods Program (HFP) released its 2025 Priority Deliverables, which highlights activities the HFP plans to focus on during its first year following a reorganization of the program’s design and responsibilities that went into effect on October 1, 2024. To meet its public health mission and vision the HFP centralized its risk management activities into three main areas:  

  • Microbiological Food Safety: Advancing strategies to prevent pathogen-related foodborne illness in close collaboration with other regulatory agencies, states, industry, and other stakeholders.  This will include finalization of an implementation plan for pre-harvest agricultural water, and issuance of the final guidance on the Produce Safety Rule (PSR). 
  • Food Chemical Safety: Ensuring that exposure to chemicals, including both additives and contaminants, that occur in foods is safe, advancing dietary supplement safety, and supporting and effectively regulating food ingredient innovation.
  • Nutrition: Elevating and empowering action on nutrition science, policy, and initiatives to help reduce the burden of diet-related chronic diseases, improve health equity, and ensure the nutritional adequacy and safety of infant formula.  

For each risk management area, the priority deliverables are intended to strengthen regulatory oversight and promote priority policy initiatives, advance the science needed to inform the agency’s decision-making, and better leverage partnerships and engagement to help achieve the HFP’s public health mission.  While the HFP was officially established on October 1, 2024, work continues to fully operationalize the program, particularly in the areas of enhanced risk modeling, laboratory integration, regulatory workforce development, and performance management.  The design of the HFP streamlines operations and unifies all FDA food functions, personnel, and resources that are programmatic in nature under the leadership of the Deputy Commissioner for Human Foods.  The reorganization which created the Human Foods Program took effect on October 1, 2024, and is the single largest reorganization in the FDA’s modern history.

Urgent Notice: Private Applicator Certificate Training Session and Exam

CDFA will be conducting a Private Applicator Certificate Training Session and Exam next Tuesday, October 29th at the Westside Field Station in Five Points.  Please note:

Additional information for the exam:

  • Everybody will need to show identification.
  • An employee must have a Letter of Authorization from the owner for that employee to be allowed to take the PAC exam. This form is attached to this email. 
  • If a person fails the PAC exam, they must wait 7 days before they can take it again.
  • Both the PAC exam and BVF exam are available to be taken at our Fresno office now. There is no need to wait until next week if individuals believe they can pass the exam. We can set up group exams as well.

 

Private Applicator Certificate Training

Be Advised: More 1,3-D Regulations on the Way

Sometime next month, the California Department of Pesticide Regulation (CDPR) will release proposed new regulations to reduce potential exposure to occupational bystanders.  We have not seen the draft regulations yet, but they are veing developed with the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, and we can expect the outcome to include more or tighter restrictions.  CDPR will hold four (4) herings on the proposed regulations in January, as follows:

  • Wednesday, January 8th
    • 6 to 8 pm at the Visalia Veteran’s Memorial, 609 W. Center Avenue in Visalia
  • Friday, January 10th
  • Thursday, January 16th
    • 6 to 8 pm at the National Steinbeck Center, 1 Main Street in Salinas
  • Tuesday, January 21st
    • 6 to 8 pm at the Chico Women’s Club, 592 E. 3rd in Chico

Stay tuned for details on the proposed regulations. 

WAPA Hosts Assemblyman Josh Hoover

This week, the Western Agricultural Processors Association hosted Assemblyman Josh Hoover (7th Assemlby District) at ShoEi Foods in Olivehurst.  The site visit was part of a larger tour that included visits to Grow West, and ag products and service retailer in Yuba City, and a rice farm, Van Dyke Farms in Wheatland.   While visiting the walnut processing operation Operations Manager Dwight Davis and Plant Manager Richard Alcantar explained the walnut processing operation while also discussing challenges with electric infrastructure, and other regulatory issues.  Participating in the site visit was Association President/CEO Roger Isom, Assistant Vice President Priscilla Rodriguez, and Director of Technical Services Christopher McGlothlin.  Partnering organizations included the California Rice Commission and the Western Plant Health Association. 

Josh Hoover 1 Josh Hoover 2

Association President/CEO Isom Addresses UC Merced Air Quality Conference

Presenting this past week at the Air Quality and Health Conference, sponsored by the Health Sciences Research Institute and the Department of Public Health at the University of California Merced, Association President/CEO Roger Isom stated “We all need to work together to help support programs like FARMER to keep financial incentives coming to the Valley”.  The two-day conference was held at UC Merced on October 17 and 18, 2024, and according to the Institute was intended to bring together the many people working on air quality across the San Joaquin Valley and California to share current research, discuss new research directions, and discuss what policies, actions, and education are needed to improve air quality and public health.  Attendees included community members and organizations, university and government scientists, policymakers and regulators, and senior leadership from local and state health and environmental agencies.  As expected, environmental justice advocates took the opportunity to attack and criticize the ag industry and lamented that agriculture should be “forced to accept a mandatory replacement tractor rule,” as voiced by one activist.  Isom responded “agriculture is different from other industries in the fact we have no way to pass along the cost due to the world marketplace.  Buyers will simply buy from another country that can supply the product at a cheaper price”.  To which the crowd stated, “we want to see your profits!”  Also maligned was the Department of Pesticide Regulation (CDPR) by activists demanding more action against pesticide applications.  Activists criticized CDPR for not having enough air monitoring stations, misstating facts and poisoning farmworkers.  For a conference designed to bring people together it only served to further the divide.

  1. WAPA Talks Food Safety to APG LeadOn Leadership Program
  2. Association Hosts Assemblywoman Lori Wilson at Walnut Huller and Pistachio Processor
  3. WAPA Board Member Nominations Open
  4. CDPR Releases Clean Air Monitoring Report for 2023

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Governor Signs Ag Overtime Bill

Ignoring the pleas of real farmworkers and the agricultural industry, Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. today signed AB 1066, the ag overtime legislation. This means that California will have the most stringent trigger of any state in the country for overtime for farmworkers, with 45 states having no overtime protection at all. The Governor signed this bill, supposedly to bring “equality to all workers”, yet taxi cab drivers, commercial fishermen, car salesmen, student nurses, computer programmers, and carnival workers all work without any overtime provisions whatsoever. The Governor signed this ag overtime bill in the same year that minimum wage legislation was also passed that will take California to the highest minimum wage as well as legislation forcing California to adopt additional greenhouse gas regulations for businesses in California. California is the only state in the country subject to such regulations. Today’s signing occurred despite numerous requests by the agricultural industry to meet with the Governor to discuss our concerns. The message is clear. California simply doesn’t care. These provisions will be phased in over the next few years ending with the overtime provisions to be triggered at 8 hours per day and 40 hours per week.

In the Beginning As folks transitioned out of cotton and into tree nuts, the industry recognized the need to have active and effective representation at the local, state and national levels. Having enjoyed such effective representation over the years from the California Cotton Ginners and Growers Associations, these folks yearned for the same representation in the tree nut processing industry. Issues such as air quality, food safety, labor, taxes, employee safety, and environmental concerns are at the forefront, and there is a significant need for an aggressive and dynamic Association to lead the industry into the next decade and beyond. In recognition of this, the Western Agricultural Processors Association was created in 2009. The Western Agricultural Processors Association (WAPA) shares staff and office space with the California Cotton Ginners and Growers Associations taking advantage of a unique and opportunistic situation. WAPA is a voluntary dues organization with four shared staff and one dedicated staff person. Regulatory, legislative and legal issues fall under the purview of this new organization for the tree nut processing industry, which includes almonds, pecans, pistachios and walnuts. From air quality permits to conditional use permits, from regulatory hearings on greenhouse gases to federal legislation on food safety, and from OSHA violations to assisting members on hazardous materials business plans, no issue is too small or too large for WAPA. WAPA has assembled one of the best and most capable staffs in the industry, and the results are already starting to show Membership The Western Agricultural Processors Association represents facilities involved in the processing of almonds, pecans, pistachios and walnuts.Membership in the Association is classified as Regular memberships are limited to almond hullers or processors, pecan and pistachio processors, and walnut dehydrators and processors. Associate memberships are limited to any individual or business entity which is not engaged in agricultural processing, but which provides products or services directly related to the agricultural processing industry. WAPA Associate members include, but are not limited to, commodity brokers, accounting firms, and insurance brokers. Organization The Western Agricultural Processors Association is governed by a Board of Directors, elected by its membership.The Board consists of up to 15 members from throughout the state, and throughout the industry.The Board meets on a quarterly basis and conducts an Annual Meeting in the spring of each year.WAPA, in conjunction with the California Cotton Ginners and Growers Associations, conducts a special training school for its members focused on safety.In combination with the school, the Association holds a Labor Management Seminar for all of the managers. Consulting Services In researching and considering the concept of forming a new organization, the Boards of Directors for the California Cotton Ginners and Growers Associations instructed staff to perform some of the work on a consulting basis first. The point was to determine the workload from consulting and to determine if there was sufficient interest. In November of 2007, the Association began conducting services under consulting contracts for such services as air quality permits and safety plans.The effort has been so successful that demand has progressed outside the tree nut industry into other agricultural processing facilities, including vegetable dehydration facilities, tomato processing facilities, and wheat mills, as well as cotton gins in Arizona.It was determined by the new Board of Directors of WAPA, that WAPA would maintain the consulting services to provide offsetting income to help with the expenses of getting the new organization up and running.Today, WAPA provides for a long list of satisfied clients in the agricultural processing industry, by providing critical services such as air quality, safety, food safety, and environmental issues (Hazardous Materials Business Plan, Spill Prevention Control and Countermeasure Plans, etc.).