The Food and Drug Administration on Friday proposed two sweeping rules aimed at preventing the contamination of produce and processed foods, taking a long-awaited step toward codifying the food safety law that Congress passed two years ago.
Nicole Bengiveno/The New York Times
A new rule imposed by the F.D.A. would establish different standards for ensuring the purity of water that touches fruits and vegetables.
The proposed rules represent a sea change in the way the agency polices food, a process that currently involves swinging into action after food contamination has been identified rather than protecting against it before it hits grocery shelves.
“These new rules really set the basic framework for a modern, science-based approach to food safety and shifts us from a strategy of reacting to problems to a strategy for preventing problems,” Michael R. Taylor, deputy commissioner for foods and veterinary medicine at the F.D.A., said in an interview.
The F.D.A. is responsible for the safety of about 80 percent of the food that the nation consumes. The remainder of the burden falls to the Department of Agriculture, which is responsible for meat, poultry and some eggs. One in six Americans becomes ill from eating contaminated food each year, the government estimates; of those, roughly 130,000 are hospitalized and 3,000 die.
Congress passed the groundbreaking Food Safety Modernization Act in 2010 after a wave of incidents involving tainted eggs, peanut butter and spinach sickened thousands of people and led major food makers to join consumer advocates in demanding stronger government oversight.
But it took the Obama administration two years to move the rules through the F.D.A., prompting accusations by advocates that the White House was more concerned about protecting itself from Republican criticism than about public safety.
Mr. Taylor said, however, that the delay was a function of the wide variety of foods that the rules had to encompass and the complexity of the food system. “Anything that is important and complicated will always take longer than you would like,” he said.
The first rule would require manufacturers of processed foods sold in the United States to identify, adopt and carry out measures to reduce the risk of contamination. Food companies also would be required to have a plan for correcting any problems that might arise and for keeping records that F.D.A. inspectors could use for audit purposes.
One such preventive measure might be the roasting of raw peanuts at a temperature guaranteed to kill salmonella bacteria, which has been a problem in nut butters in recent years. Roasted nuts might then be sequestered from incoming raw nuts to further reduce the risk of contamination, said Sandra B. Eskin, director of the safe food campaign at the Pew Charitable Trusts.
“This is very good news for consumers,” Ms. Eskin said. “We applaud the administration’s action, which demonstrates its strong commitment to making our food safer.”
The second rule would apply to the harvesting and production of fruits and vegetables in an effort to combat the bacterial contamination that has arisen over the last decade, particularly from E. coli, a bacterium that is transmitted through feces. It would address what advocates refer to as the “four Ws” — water, waste, workers and wildlife.
Farmers would establish different standards for ensuring the purity of water that touches, say, lettuce leaves and the water used to saturate soil, which will only nourish plants through their roots.
A farm or plant where vegetables are packaged might, for example, add lavatories to ensure that workers do not urinate in fields and post signs similar to those in restaurants that remind employees to wash their hands.
The food industry cautiously applauded the arrival of the proposed rules, with most companies and industry groups noting that they would be poring over them and making comments as necessary in the coming weeks.
“Consumers expect industry and government to work together to provide Americans and consumers around the world with the safest possible products,” the Grocery Manufacturers Association said in a statement. “FSMA and its implementation effort can serve as a role model for what can be achieved when the private and public sectors work together to achieve a common goal.”
The association noted that the F.D.A. will have to issue more than 50 regulations to fully carry out the new law.
