The FDA recently released four food-safety proposals under the Food Safety Modernization Act after receiving thousands of comments from agricultural stakeholders, processors, and consumers.

The updated proposed rules involve produce safety, preventive controls for human and animal food, and the foreign verification program. According to Mike Taylor, deputy commissioner for foods and veterinary medicine, "the FDA is proposing to update these four proposed rules to ensure a more flexible and targeted means to ensure future safety."

The FDA proposals will:

• Exempt small farms making less than $25,000 in produce sales from the produce safety rule.

• Revise the foreign-supplier verification to give importers more flexibility with their suppliers.

• Clarify that companies that create by-products used as animal food (such as brewers who produce spent grains) and already comply with FDA human food safety requirements do not need to comply with the full animal food rule.

• Change the water quality testing provisions to account for natural variations in water sources.

The final rules will be issued in 2015.