Food Safety Certification for Specialty Crops Program

Specialty crop operations incur significant costs to comply with market-driven food safety certification requirements each year with little opportunity to recover the increased costs. FSCSC provides assistance to eligible specialty crop operations that incurred eligible on-farm food safety program expenses related to obtaining or renewing a food safety certification. To be eligible for assistance, the specialty crop operation must have obtained a 2022 food safety certification between June 21, 2022, and December 31, 2022, a 2023 food safety certification at any time during the 2023 calendar year, a 2024 food safety certification between June 26, 2024, and December 31, 2024, and a 2025 food safety certification at any time during the 2025 calendar year. To be eligible for FSCSC for 2022 and 2023, a specialty crop operation must qualify as a very small or small business, meaning their average annual monetary value of specialty crops sold during the 3-year period preceding the program year was not more than $500,000. To be eligible for FSCSC for 2024 and 2025, a specialty crop operation must qualify as a small or medium size business, meaning their average annual monetary value of specialty crops sold during the 3-year period preceding the program year was not more than $1,000,000. Eligible expenses include developing a food safety plan for first-time food safety certification, maintaining or updating an existing food safety plan, food safety certification, certification upload fees, microbiological testing, and training.