The overall goal of the Southern Center is to build a collaborative infrastructure in the Southern US to support Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) compliant training, education, extension, outreach, and technical assistance as it relates to the produce industry.
The FDA announced in March 2017 the intent to review Subpart E of the Produce Safety Rule (PSR) to consider how the requirements for agricultural water might be simplified. The proposal published in December 2021 does not include changes to the harvest and post-harvest requirements for agricultural water. In July 2022, the FDA issued a supplemental notice of proposed rulemaking to extend the compliance dates for the pre-harvest agricultural water requirements for non-sprout covered produce.
Plans for SRIPS 2025 are in motion! The program committee is actively working on the program offer!
If interested in participating, please email Peggy Geren/ pgeren@ufl.edu. More details and registration coming soon!
2024 Conference was held in Greenville, SC and gathered a number of organizations, researchers, Extension educators, growers, and regulatory bodies from the Southern region, and a wide variety of topics and the latest approaches relevant to FSMA and produce safety were discussed on.
For more information, event program and presentations, go here: Resources
We are offering In- Person- training courses again, starting in January 2023. Some other training programs have been moved to virtual platforms.