Professionals from Peru and Colombia receive training on new export requirements to the USA

Peru and Colombia prepare to meet new export requirements to the US Thus, 59 professionals from both countries have been trained in compliance with the rules of the FSMA Act, which regulates the export of processed products to the United States, through a training program in which the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation Agriculture (IICA) and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) collaborate.

The idea of instructing these professionals on this subject is that they, in turn, replicate the knowledge acquired with other actors in the sector. Thus, the commitment of the trainees is to transfer their training and promote the understanding of the new demands among the sector, since this training empowers them as leading instructors and, therefore, to train exporters, producers, academics and officials in the field of food preventive controls for humans.

“Training on this issue is fundamental for the export sector of the countries, we want to make sure that the information is flowing and we hope to contribute to eliminate the doubts that this process could generate”, assured the specialist in Health and Food Safety, Ana Marisa Cordero.

For Cordero, this type of initiative meets the objective of providing technical assistance and strengthening capacities to comply with US regulations and allows the training of instructors at a minimum cost

The trainings are part of the Food Safety and Agricultural Sustainability (FAST) program, which is implemented by IICA and the USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service.

The FAST program aims to strengthen capacities in countries of Central America, South America and the Caribbean to support the export of food to the United States and promote compliance with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)

The program now includes 204 professionals from the public, private and academic sectors, trained in Jamaica, Trinidad, Barbados, Saint Lucia, Haiti, Grenada, Antigua and Barbuda, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Peru and Colombia. The initiative still has to be implemented in Paraguay, the meeting is scheduled for September.

From the second half of the year, capacity development will begin to meet the requirements of the standard for fresh agricultural products

Source: IICA

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