FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Tuesday, October 4, 2011

CONTACT:
Michael Schommer, Communications Director
651.201.6629, Michael.schommer@state.mn.us

FDA awards $1 million rapid-response grant to Minnesota Department of Agriculture

Funding will boost state agriculture department’s food protection and crisis response work

ST. PAUL, Minn. – The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has awarded the Minnesota Department of Agriculture (MDA) a two-year, $1 million grant to strengthen its capacity to respond to food-borne outbreaks and other food safety events.

The FDA grant will fund several new activities of the MDA’s Food Protection Rapid Response Team, including efforts to develop “best practices” guidelines to be shared with other government food safety organizations.

“A core part of the Minnesota Department of Agriculture’s mission is to protect the integrity of our food supply,” MDA Commissioner Dave Frederickson said. “Our food safety team has received national praise for its fast and effective work, and with this grant, we’ll be able to do even more to protect food safety for Minnesotans and the millions of people around the world who eat food grown here.”

Awarded late last month, the grant provides MDA with $500,000 over each of the next two federal fiscal years (2012 and 2013). According to FDA, the funding is to be used to make long-term improvements to the nation’s food safety system by strengthening cooperation and coordination between partner agencies and improving states’ regulation and monitoring of manufactured foods. The grant funding is to be used to supplement existing state efforts, and is not allowed to be used to replace state funding for existing programs or activities.

Specific grant initiatives planned by MDA include:

• Joint training exercises to test food emergency response capabilities of MDA, FDA and other partners;
• Development of new material for a national “best-practices” playbook derived from the real-world food-borne illness investigations of MDA and the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH);
• Training of other public and private-sector food safety staff to improve prevention and response efforts.

MDA’s Food Protection Rapid Response Team investigates food safety issues that arise as part of food-borne illness outbreaks or problems identified in food or animal feed facilities in Minnesota. The team works closely with MDH epidemiologists when people become sick from food, and MDA’s team traces contaminated food back to the source to identify the cause of outbreaks. The work of the Rapid Response Team has been instrumental in solving several national outbreaks in recent years.

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