4.8 Food Defense

Emergency Action Plans--All states either have developed or are developing livestock, crop and food emergency response plans. NASDA has developed a model Food Emergency Repsonse Plan through an cooperative agreement with federal partners. The state departments of agriculture and other state government agencies need assistance to develop and implement these plans, along with preparedness training and education. NASDA urges the Department of Homeland Security to provide funding for these activities. We believe it is cost-effective to provide state and local government with a valuable readiness tool to facilitate seamless regional and national responses to food emergencies.

National Incident Management System (NIMS)--NIMs was developed so that local, state and federal responders from different jurisdictions and disciplines can work together in responding to natural disasters, emergencies and terrorism. NIMS provides a unified approach to incident management using the Incident Command Structure (ICS). NASDA believes more efforts are needed to address the communications gap between state and federal partners in the sharing of critical information and intelligence. NASDA also believes the development of rapid communications and incident notification systems should be a top priority and include both public and private sector decision-makers.

North Carolina recently employed an Incident Command System [ICS] utilizing state and local government officials from a multitude of agencies within that state to address a widely marketed chili sauce recall. They performed more recall audit checks in North Carolina than the rest of the country combined and removed from sale approximately 32,000 units of the tainted product from domestic channels in that state. They also found a large number of these botulism-tainted products in children’s camps and other non-traditional food venues ready for sale or service. Federal agencies need to review their response efforts with recalls and establish a formalized strategy with state and local government to significantly improve recall response as was done in North Carolina.