The FDA will soon announce a two-year delay on a rule setting water-quality standards for large produce farms, said Frank Yiannas, the agency’s deputy commissioner for food safety, on Thursday. Yiannas said the delay grew out of the FDA’s investigation of an outbreak of food-borne illness linked to romaine lettuce.
Yiannas mentioned the delay of the ag water rule, until January 2022, during a speech at the annual Consumer Federation of America conference. “Watch for that,” he said. The rule is part of the implementation of the Food Safety Modernization Act, which requires producers to identify contamination risks in the food chain and find ways to reduce them. The 2022 compliance date will apply to large operators; small farms will have a later compliance deadline, Yiannas told reporters after the speech.
Additional work is needed on the water rule, he said. The romaine outbreak indicated that bacteria could survive in place longer than regulators had realized.
When a conference attendee suggested vaccinating poultry to curb salmonella, Yiannas replied, “I’m very open to looking at every tool in the toolbox.”