With the new Food Safety Modernisation Act established by the United States’ Food and Drug Administration (FDA), it seems like a farm may no longer be a farm! With changes in the make up for food safety in the United States, it is becoming increasingly difficult to pinpoint what exactly constitutes a farm.
Farms are now subject to the law’s produce safety rule but not the preventive controls rules since the establishment of the Food Safety Modernisation Act (to understand this better, check out the IFSQN web seminar on our site here). With the rules in mind, the FDA have established two types of farms.
The first is primary production farm which means that the farm is operating under one management in one general, but not necessarily contiguous, physical location devoted to the growing of crops, the harvesting of crops, the raising of animals (including seafood), or a combination of those activities.
The other is secondary activities farm which are an operation not located on a primary production farm and devoted to the key farming operations of harvesting, packing, and/or holding of raw agricultural commodities.
These terms have now been coined to help enforce the right laws depending on the farm’s production.
If you are a producer, what type of farm will your operation fall under? Can you adapt the laws used in the United States to better your own farm?
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