[Federal Register Volume 80, Number 102 (Thursday, May 28, 2015)]
[Notices]
[Pages 30470-30471]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2015-12853]



[[Page 30470]]

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DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

Food and Drug Administration

[Docket No. FDA-2010-N-0480]


Integrated Food Safety System Online Collaboration Development

AGENCY: Food and Drug Administration, HHS.

ACTION: Notice.

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SUMMARY: The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is announcing the 
availability of grant funds for the support of the National Center for 
Food Protection and Defense (NCFPD). The goal of the NCFPD is to 
provide well-established and high-level access to Food/Agriculture 
Sector Organizations and coordination of electronic collaborative 
tools; collaborative support from the Department of Health and Human 
Services (HHS), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and the U.S. 
Department of Agriculture (USDA). NCFPD also has past experience 
directly supporting the President's Food Safety Working Group 
Objectives to integrate the food safety system at all levels.

DATES: Important dates are as follows:
    1. The application due date is July 15, 2015.
    2. The anticipated start date is September 2015.
    3. The opening date is May 15, 2015.
    4. The expiration date is July 16, 2015.

ADDRESSES: Submit electronic applications to: http://www.grants.gov. 
For more information, see section III of the SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION 
section of this notice.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Nicola Areshenko, Food and Drug 
Administration, Office of Regulatory Affairs, 253-987-7921, email: 
[email protected]; or Dan Lukash, Grants Management 
Specialist, Food and Drug Administration, Office of Acquisitions & 
Grant Services, 240-402-7596, [email protected].
    For more information on this funding opportunity announcement (FOA) 
and to obtain detailed requirements, please refer to the full FOA 
located at http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide (select the ``Request for 
Applications'' link), http://www.grants.gov (see ``For Applicants'' 
section), and http://www.grants.gov/web/grants/search-grants.html?keywords=rfa-fd-15-024.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

I. Funding Opportunity Description

    RFA-FD-15-021
    93.103

A. Background

    Food can become contaminated at many different points--on the farm, 
in processing or distribution facilities, during transit, at retail and 
food service establishments, and in the home. In recent years, FDA, in 
cooperation with other food regulatory and public health agencies, has 
done a great deal to prevent both intentional and unintentional 
contamination of food at each of these points. FDA has worked with 
other Federal, State, local, tribal, territorial, and foreign 
counterpart food safety regulatory and public health agencies, as well 
as with law enforcement and intelligence-gathering agencies, and with 
industry, consumer groups, and academia, to strengthen the nation's 
food safety and food defense system across the entire distribution 
chain.
    This cooperation has resulted in greater awareness of potential 
vulnerabilities, the creation of more effective prevention programs, 
new surveillance systems, and the ability to respond more quickly to 
outbreaks of foodborne illness. However, changes in consumer dietary 
patterns, changes in industry practices, changes in the U.S. 
population, an increasingly globalized food supply chain, and new 
pathogens and other contaminants pose challenges that are requiring us 
to adapt our current food protection strategies.
    At the Federal level, a number of agencies are working together to 
coordinate their efforts and develop short- and long-term agendas to 
make food safer. As the Federal regulatory Agency responsible for most 
of the nation's food supply,\1\ FDA is committed to ensuring that the 
food \2\ supply is among the safest in the world. This requires a 
systematic, integrated approach to effective risk control and 
enforcement strategies. Together with our Federal, State, local, 
tribal, and territorial public health partners, FDA is working to plan 
and implement an inspection and enforcement program to ensure high 
rates of compliance with the Agency's food safety standards. FDA 
intends to establish a fully integrated national food safety system 
built on collaboration among all of these partners. This system will 
encompass inspections, laboratory testing, and outbreak response and 
will place priority on preventing foodborne illness, in both food for 
humans and animals. This collaboration will result in: (1) Better 
ability to assess potential risk at domestic food facilities and 
greater and more consistent inspectional coverage of these facilities 
across the entire food supply chain, (2) greater food surveillance 
through integration of food facility inspection and testing 
information, and (3) improved rapid response capacity and efficiency.
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    \1\ FDA is the Federal Agency that is responsible for regulating 
most of the country's food supply, with the exception of most meat, 
poultry, and processed egg products, which are overseen by the USDA.
    \2\ For purposes of this document, the term ``food'' includes 
human food, animal feed, components (i.e. ingredients) of both food 
and feed, and dietary supplements for humans, except as otherwise 
noted.
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    Current leveraging efforts have not been sufficient to ensure 
adequate oversight of the entire food supply chain. Food facilities are 
not uniformly inspected, data are not uniformly captured on a national 
basis, and the data that are collected are not systematically mined for 
intelligence. Neither FDA nor our regulatory or public health partners 
alone collect and analyze a sufficient number of surveillance samples 
per year to have confidence in to the ability to effectively identify 
potential areas of concern; combining the data from all public health 
partners would greatly enhance FDA's ability to detect potential 
problems. In addition, national response efforts are uneven. Throughout 
the years, numerous reports have concluded that FDA does not take full 
advantage of the inspectional and surveillance capabilities of our 
state, territorial, tribal and local regulatory and public health 
partners. This is due in large part to the varied standards and laws in 
each state as compared with the Federal system, as well as to the lack 
of interoperable data systems and legal impediments to sharing data 
among partners.
    These combined factors present a challenge in managing and 
responding to signals of public health concern in the food supply. The 
currently decentralized U.S. public health and agriculture system 
results in a situation in which responsibility for surveillance, 
detection, investigation, response, and recovery to foodborne disease 
outbreaks is shared across Federal, State, territorial, tribal, and 
local government agencies.
    Various levels of government are working to improve the nation's 
food safety and defense system. At all levels, there is a call for 
greater integration and coordination between the Federal agencies and 
the regulatory and public health partners involved in food safety. An 
integrated food safety system will allow FDA to meet the President's 
Food Safety Working Group recommendation that the Federal government 
``. . . prioritize crucial inspection and enforcement activity across 
the world,

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support safety efforts by States, localities, and businesses at home; 
and utilize data to guide these efforts and evaluate their outcomes.'' 
\3\
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    \3\ President's Food Safety Working Group Key Findings Report 
submitted to President Obama on July 7, 2009.
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    To be fully successful, the national food safety system must be 
built with continuous input from FDA's regulatory and public health 
partners. Efforts shall facilitate information sharing and 
communication among all partners, and include infrastructure for a 
national electronic information-sharing mechanism. These actions will 
result in a national food safety system that identifies sources of risk 
throughout the system and reduces time to detect and respond to 
foodborne outbreaks. A public health-driven, collaborative, and 
leveraged approach to food safety activities and responsibilities will 
be reflected in improved public sector resource utilization at a 
national level, which provides additional capacity for ensuring a safe 
and secure food supply.

B. Research Objectives

    The Office of Regulatory Affairs, in coordination with FDA's Office 
of Foods, Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, and Center for 
Veterinary Medicine, is soliciting a cooperative grant proposal to 
expedite program development to support critical federal-state 
collaboration necessary to plan and implement an integrated food safety 
system. The intent is to fund proposals for the continued development 
and operations of collaborative online tools involving a range of 
stakeholders for the purposes of: (1) Information sharing in the 
development of an integrated food safety system and (2) developing and 
implementing a sustainable model for continued collaborative 
communication and information sharing. This grant opportunity is 
limited to organizations receiving funding under the current Integrated 
Food Safety System Online Collaboration Development cooperative 
agreement. The NCFPD, a DHS Center of Excellence, has unique expertise 
and capacity found nowhere else. It is the host/creator of FoodSHIELD, 
an inter-governmental collaborative project supporting information 
sharing at the Federal, State, and local levels. NCFPD is uniquely 
qualified to provide: Well-established and high-level access to Food/
Agriculture Sector Organizations and coordination of electronic 
collaborative tools; collaborative support from HHS, DHS, and the USDA. 
NCFPD also has past experience directly supporting the President's Food 
Safety Working Group Objectives to integrate the food safety system at 
all levels.

C. Eligibility Information

    The following organizations/institutions are eligible to apply:
    This cooperative agreement is only available to organizations 
receiving funding under the current Integrated Food Safety System 
Online Collaboration Development cooperative agreement. Competition is 
limited to NCFPD because it is uniquely qualified and has expertise and 
capacity found nowhere else. It is the host/creator of FoodSHIELD, an 
intergovernmental collaborative project supporting information sharing 
at the federal, state and local levels. NCFPD is uniquely qualified to 
provide: Well-established and high-level access to Food/Agriculture 
Sector Organizations and coordination of electronic collaborative 
tools; collaborative support from HHS, DHS, and the USDA. NCFPD also 
has past experience directly supporting the President's Food Safety 
Working Group Objectives to integrate the food safety system at all 
levels.

II. Award Information/Funds Available

A. Award Amount

    One award up to $680,000 for fiscal year 2015 with up to an 
additional 4 years funding up to $680,000 per year.

B. Length of Support

    Up to 5 years.

III. Electronic Application, Registration, and Submission

    Only electronic applications will be accepted. To submit an 
electronic application in response to this FOA, applicants should first 
review the full announcement located at http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide. (FDA has verified the Web site addresses throughout this 
document but FDA is not responsible for any subsequent changes to the 
Web sites after this document publishes in the Federal Register.) For 
all electronically submitted applications, the following steps are 
required.
     Step 1: Obtain a Dun and Bradstreet (DUNS) Number
     Step 2: Register With System for Award Management (SAM)
     Step 3: Obtain Username & Password
     Step 4: Authorized Organization Representative (AOR) 
Authorization
     Step 5: Track AOR Status
     Step 6: Register With Electronic Research Administration 
(eRA) Commons
    Steps 1 through 5, in detail, can be found at http://www07.grants.gov/applicants/organization_registration.jsp. Step 6, in 
detail, can be found at https://commons.era.nih.gov/commons/registration/registrationInstructions.jsp. After you have followed 
these steps, submit electronic applications to: http://www.grants.gov.

    Dated: May 21, 2015.
Leslie Kux,
Associate Commissioner for Policy.
[FR Doc. 2015-12853 Filed 5-27-15; 8:45 am]
 BILLING CODE 4164-01-P