The Department of Education in joint effort with The Food and Drug Administration of the Federal Government has developed a unique grant entitled Food Protection Task Force Conference (R13). The Funding Opportunity Number for this specific grant is PAR-09-123, which was initially created on February 16, 2010 but will be open for application by eligible parties through March 30, 2012. Because of need and popularity of this grant, the amount of the grant award was increased for fiscal year 2010 by $10,000! The areas this grant will focus on primarily include the following:
• Agriculture
• Consumer Protection
• Disaster Prevention and Relief
• Education
• Environment
• Food and Nutrition
• Health
• Regional Development
In the past decade, millions of people have become ill from bad food and unfortunately, some have even died. If you look at Mad Cow Disease as a prime example, this devastated cattle farms, the food market, and even people’s lives. Many different types and degrees of contaminated foods have hit the market for purchase by unsuspecting consumers. These foods include virtually everything such as dairy products, meat and poultry, baby food, and everything in between.
Growing concerns not only relates to methods of raising and processing foods, but also after 09/11, better systems for protection of food sources need to be in place against terrorists. Although this is a massive goal, one that will take many years and a tremendous amount of coordinated effort to accomplish, the creation of Federal grants such as the Food Protection Task Force Conference (R13) is certainly a great start.
The Food Protection Task Force Conference grant was developed for specific reasons. The goal with this grant is for applications to be solicited from organizations and institutions that would then propose the organization of regular Food Protection Task Force meetings. The purpose of these meetings would be focused on improving communication, developing stronger cooperation, and boosting collaborative efforts within the States but along Tribal, Local, and State agencies for food protection, agriculture, public health, and regulatory agencies.
However, the meetings that would need to be organized and executed would be structured in such a way that specific goals would be achieved. For instance, characteristics of these meetings would include:
• Help with the adoption or implementation of the Food Code, as well as other regulations for the protection of food
• Provide a focused forum specific for all stakeholders of the food protection system. These stakeholders would include academia, industry, consumers, regulatory agencies, Boards of Health and Agriculture, State legislators, and any other interested and applicable parties.
• The final purpose of meetings being developed would be to promote integration of a statewide food protection and defense system, one that would be far more efficient than current systems, but also a system that could maximize protection of the public’s health as it pertains to food. To accomplish this, better preventative measures would need to be in place, intervention strategies devised, and response faster and more directed to include identifying and containing all food-borne illnesses much early than systems currently in place.
To apply for the Food Protection Task Force Conference grant, only groups or individuals associated with State governments, city governments, township governments, and Native American Tribal governments recognized by the Federal Government would be eligible to apply. Keep in mind that for this grant, only Tribal, Local, and State government agencies, which includes agriculture, food protection, and State public health agencies would have the opportunity to get involved with this program.
Additionally, grants made available to State agencies whereby a Food Safety and Food Defense Task Force already exists, along with any agency in the process of developing such task force would be able to submit an application for this particular grant. Then, the Federal Government strongly urges States to coordinate efforts with agencies for application submittal in that only one application will be awarded for each State.
Therefore, if several agencies of a State were interested in applying, it would be mandatory for them to work as a team with one application. If one State agency were received before all others, even if not the most critical agency, that would be the one considered with all others being void. For this reason, assigning coordination of these efforts would be imperative.
Eligible applicants can acquire more information through the Food and Drug Administration, FDA Electronic Integration Liaison, Office of Acquisitions and Grants Management. Letters of inquiry could be sent to 5630 Fishers Lane, Suite 2104, Rockville, Maryland, 20857, or the department could be called at 301-827-7162. Other forms of contact include email to Marc Pitts at marc.pitts@fda.hhs.gov or Martin Bernard at martin.bernard@fda.hhs.gov.
