Memo

United States
Department of
Agriculture

Farm
Production
and
Conservation

Farm
Service
Agency

1400 Independence Avenue, SW
Stop 0540
Washington, DC
20250-0540

DATE:

June 13, 2022

TO:

Michael Ciccarone
OMB Desk Officer

THROUGH:

Ruth Brown
USDA Information Collection Officer

FROM:

Scott Marlow
WILLIAM
Deputy Administrator for Farm Programs MARLOW

SUBJECT:

Request for Emergency Approval for a New Information Collection
Package—Food Safety Certification for Specialty Crops Program
(FSCSC)

Digitally signed by WILLIAM
MARLOW
Date: 2022.06.14 09:00:53
-04'00'

The Farm Service Agency (FSA) is requesting OMB approval on the emergency approval
of a collection of information necessary to implement the Food Safety Certification for
Specialty Crops Program (FSCSC), which will assist specialty crop operations that incurred
eligible expenses for 2022 and 2023 food safety certifications. These operations incur
significant costs to comply with market-driven food safety certification requirements each
year with little opportunity to recover the increased costs.
FSCSC funding of $200,000,000 is authorized under the Commodity Credit Corporation
Charter Act (15 U.S.C. 714c(e)).
FSA will begin accepting applications for the 2022 program year in June of 2022 after
NOFA publication, and will announce the 2022 deadline and 2023 application period at a
later time.
The collection of information is essential to the mission of FSA because it will help
producers meet the demands of grocery stores, schools, and other institutional buyers and
retailers that require food safety plans to ensure the safe growing, harvesting, packing,
and holding of their crops.
FSA cannot reasonably comply with the normal PRA clearance procedures under 5 CFR
part 1320 because:
•

Public harm is reasonably likely to result if normal PRA clearance procedures are
followed – that public harm would be to the producers of specialty crops who need
to obtain food safety certification in order to access markets for their crops. Failure
of specialty crop producers to meet buyers’ requirements could result in potential
food shortages or other changes that could extend the harm to consumers and others
in the line of business (5 CFR 1320.13(a)(2)(i)).

FSA is currently finalizing details of FSCSC administration and expects to publish a NOFA
announcing FSCSC on June 26, 2022.

Page 2

The application form has been developed to be easy for specialty crop producers to
complete. Producers will provide their eligible expenses and the amount of any other cost
share received for those expenses from other sources, and also the number of
microbiological tests they have paid for if they are requesting assistance for those costs.
Applicants must also confirm that they qualify as a small of very small business, which is
required under the eligibility criteria for FSCSC.
The collection of information is needed to provide producers financial assistance as quickly
as possible because most specialty crop producers typically need to work with certifiers
throughout the summer and obtain or renew certification in late summer in order to meet
buyers’ requirements and access markets for their crops. If FSA had announced anything
estimating the burden sooner, it would have preannounced the program and set expectations
for payments sooner than would have been possible.

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