Dustin Vande Hoef
Communications Director
515/281-3375 or 515/326-1616 (cell)
or Dustin.VandeHoef@IowaAgriculture.gov
DES MOINES – Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey today announced that the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship has received a $250,000 per year grant that will run for five years from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to further enhance feed safety efforts.
“These funds will permit the Department to test livestock feeds and pet food for Salmonella, E. coli, heavy metals and mycotoxins contamination as a part of FDA’s food safety efforts,” Northey said. “This will greatly expand the biological testing we are able to do and give us the opportunity to work with commercial feed mills to improve feed safety.”
The Department submitted the application for the grant earlier this summer. Iowa was one of twelve states to receive funds through the Ruminant Feed Ban/Feed Safety Support Program Grant.
This is the first year FDA has made funds available for this expanded testing. The Department has been conducting bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) compliance inspections on behalf of FDA since 1997. Two years ago the Department received a grant through the Ruminant Feed Ban program to expand its BSE testing. The new grant will allow the Department to expand the program further and initiate testing for other contaminants.
“Our Department conducts a wide variety of feed testing with support from the FDA, and these funds will allow us to continue to expand our efforts to better protect animal feed and ultimately food safety,” Northey said.
The FDA awards grants to state and local regulatory agencies to boost food and feed safety initiatives among federal, state and local partners. The grants fund major cooperative agreements in four primary areas: response, intervention, innovation and prevention.
Northey, a corn and soybean farmer from Spirit Lake, is serving his first term as Secretary of Agriculture. His priorities as Secretary of Agriculture are the opportunities in renewable energy, conservation and stewardship, and telling the story of Iowa agriculture
