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Produce Safety

Do you grow, harvest, pack, or hold fresh produce? You may be subject to the federal Produce Safety Rule, a part of the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), which aims to prevent foodborne illness by establishing science-based standards for growing and handling produce intended for human consumption.

Enacted in 2011, the FSMA gives the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authority to take a proactive approach to food safety. This includes new compliance and enforcement tools that hold both domestic and imported foods to the same safety standards. The Produce Safety Rule sets minimum standards for the growing, harvesting, packing, and holding of produce.

The Arkansas Department of Agriculture is the implementing agency for the Produce Safety Rule in Arkansas and works directly with growers to provide training, technical assistance, and regulatory support to help them meet these federal requirements.

Produce Safety Rule

Incorporation by reference of federal produce safety regulations

The Department hereby incorporates by reference Title 21 of the Code of Federal Regulations, Part 112 (most current revision) regarding standards for the growing, harvesting, packing, and holding of produce for human consumption as provisions of this rule as though set forth herein line for line and word for word, except that unless the context otherwise dictates, references to “We”, “the United States Food and Drug Administration”, and “FDA” shall refer to the “Arkansas Department of Agriculture” or “Department”, and all words or terms defined or used in the federal regulations incorporated by reference shall mean the state equivalent or counterpart to those words or terms.

Definitions

The following words or terms, when used in this rule, shall have the following meaning, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise:

  • “Covered farm” means a farm or farm mixed-type facility with an average annual monetary value of produce sold during the previous 3–year period of more than $25,000 (on a rolling basis), adjusted for inflation using 2011 as the baseline year for calculating the adjustment. Covered farms subject to this part must comply with all applicable requirements of this part when conducting a covered activity on covered produce. A farm is not a covered farm if it satisfies the requirements in 21 C.F.R § 112.5 and the Department has not withdrawn the farm’s exemption in accordance with the requirements of Part 112, Subpart R.
  • “Department” means the Arkansas Department of Agriculture.
  • “Produce” means any fruit or vegetable (including mixes of intact fruits and vegetables) and includes mushrooms, sprouts (irrespective of seed source), peanuts, tree nuts, and herbs. A fruit is the edible reproductive body of a seed plant or tree nut (such as apple, orange, and almond) such that fruit means the harvestable or harvested part of a plant developed from a flower. A vegetable is the edible part of an herbaceous plant (such as cabbage or potato) or fleshy fruiting body of a fungus (such as white button or shiitake) grown for an edible part such that vegetable means the harvestable or harvested part of any plant or fungus whose fruit, fleshy fruiting bodies, seeds, roots, tubers, bulbs, stems, leaves, or flower parts are used as food and includes mushrooms, sprouts, and herbs (such as basil or cilantro). Produce does not include food grains meaning the small, hard fruits or seeds of arable crops, or the crops bearing these fruits or seeds, that are primarily grown and processed for use as meal, flour, baked goods, cereals and oils rather than for direct consumption as small, hard fruits or seeds (including cereal grains, pseudo cereals, oilseeds and other plants used in the samefashion). Examples of food grains include barley, dent- or flint-corn, sorghum, oats, rice, rye, wheat, amaranth, quinoa, buckwheat, and oilseeds (e.g., cotton seed, flax seed, rapeseed, soybean, and sunflower seed).

Farm Registration

  • (a) All covered farms shall register with the Department and provide a business name, mailing address, physical address, and telephone number.
  • (b) Registered covered farms shall notify the Department of any change in the information provided at registration within ninety (90) days of the change.
  • (c) Covered farms shall register with the Department no later than July 1 of each year.
  • (d) The Department may post the inflation-adjusted annual threshold on its website.

Penalties

Any person who violates a provision of this rule may be subject to one or more of the following:

  • (a) Actions detailed in the Compliance and Enforcement Penalty Matrix;
  • (b) A stop sale order;
  • (c) Civil penalties under the authority of the Arkansas Plant Act of 1917, A.C. A. Section 2-16-203.

Compliance and Training

Growers may be required to complete Produce Safety Grower Training depending on their average annual produce sales:

  • >$500,000: Compliance began January 26, 2018
  • $250,000–$500,000: Compliance began January 2019
  • $25,000–$250,000: Compliance began January 2020

To receive notifications about upcoming training opportunities, email: [email protected]

Agricultural Water

On May 2, 2024, the FDA published the “FSMA Final Rule on Pre-Harvest Agricultural Water,” which sets forth agricultural water requirements for covered produce. 

Resources

Program Contacts

Gregory D. Alexander, Produce Safety Program Manager
Email: [email protected]

David Hill, Produce Safety Inspector
Email: [email protected]

Lowell French, Produce Safety Inspector
Email: [email protected]