IICA-JIFSAN - Collaborative Training Initiative for the Americas (CTIA)

JIFSAN has been working with the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation in Agriculture (IICA) to deliver fresh produce training since its inception. In 2000 they jointly delivered the first program in Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) for fresh produce. Much of JIFSAN’s and IICA’s capacity building on GAP that took place in Latin America was funded through an FDA Cooperative Agreement with JIFSAN with support for specific country programs from the private sector, FDA, USDA-Foreign Agricultural Service (USDA-FAS), and Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA).

With the release of the FSMA Produce Safety Rule (PSR) and the creation of the Collaborative Partnership Training Initiative, the ties between IICA and JIFSAN became more pronounced. Both have received funding from two separate Cooperative Agreements with FDA to roll out training in the region. The two have worked together continuously since 2016 to improve the safety of fresh produce in Latin America, and in 2017, they ramped up their efforts to roll out the PSA training. As PSA training was mandatory for market access, in July 2017, both JIFSAN and IICA teamed up with FDA’s Latin American Office to increase the number of lead trainers in the region who were certified to provide training to Spanish-speaking growers.

Below we describe key dates involving this united effort to increase those trained in produce safety. Initial efforts supporting IICA were through a FAST Agreement with USDA-FAS.  Additional funds were supplied to IICA through FDA. For trainings funded by this mechanism, lead trainers were required to train a certain number of trainers as “pay-back.”  These payback trainings are captured under the metrics work. Funding for JIFSAN came through JIFSAN’s Cooperative Agreement.

Key dates

• • 2016: Discussions began between IICA and JIFSAN about forming a CTIA
• • 2017: IICA and JIFSAN started rolling out produce safety trainings in Latin America with funds from USDA-FAS and FDA
• • 2018: JIFSAN and IICA formalized the collaborative arrangement through an MOU and the CTIA was established.
• • 2020: JIFSAN was asked by IICA to measure the impact of IICA’s first Cooperative Agreement that focused on rolling out FSPCA and Produce Safety Rule Training.
• • 2020: JIFSAN asked to aid IICA on their second Cooperative Agreement on identifying and measuring the impact of alternative delivery mechanism which metamorphosed into evaluating the impact of supplemental training materials on the PSR
• • 2021: Controlled experiments began

CTIA’s action to facilitate “buy-in” to have a larger multiplier effect

• • In order to have a larger multiplier impact the CTIA with FDA-LAC and IICA identified 3-12 individuals from each country who they screened and two intensive trainings held in Costa Rica.  These individuals were required to give pay back trainings in which 125 of individual growers had to be trained.
• • In order to reach growers better IICA obtained a second cooperative agreement with FDA to explore the delivery of training material possibly via mobile devises.
• • In 2021, IICA worked with JIFSAN to conduct a controlled experiment to measure the effectiveness of supplemental training materials on the PSR

Metric highlights to date

Manuals and publications

• • Currently using PSA training manuals that are translated into Spanish

Other publications/conference proceedings

• • Symposium at International Association for Food Protection
• • “Lessons Learned from Produce Safety Rule Trainings to International Audiences in Latin America”
•     Organizers
  • o Clare Narrod, Joint Institute for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition/ University of Maryland
  • o Rita Vera, FDA-International Programs
  • o Ana Marisa Cordero, IICA
• • Experience with Delivery of Train-the-Trainer and Grower Trainings in Latin America
  Juan L. Silva, Mississippi State University, Mississippi State, MS, James Rushing, JIFSAN-University of Maryland, College Park, MD, Noemi Zuniga, IICA, Santiago, Chile and Sergio Nieto-Montenegro, Food Safety Consulting & Training Solutions, LLC, El Paso, TX
• • Findings from a Needs Assessment Amongst Growers in Latin America and the Development of Supplemental Training Material
  Sergio Nieto-Montenegro¹, Ana Luisa Renteria-Monterrubio², Ivette Ramírez-Rivas³, Rocio Ortega-Bañuelos⁴, America Chavez-Martinez² and Judith Candia-Sanchez⁵, (1) Food Safety Consulting & Training Solutions, LLC, El Paso, TX, (2)Universidad Autonoma de Chihuahua, Chihuahua, CI, Mexico, (3)Food Safety CTS, LLC, Chihuahua, CI, Mexico, (4)Grupo Alimentos y Nutricion, CHIHUAHUA, CI, Mexico, (5)Grupo Alimentos y Nutricion, Chihuahua, CI, Mexico
• • Monitoring and Evaluation of the Impact of International PSR Train-the-Trainer and Grower Trainings and Planned Behavioral Experiments
  Clare Narrod¹, Eric Owusu³ and Xiaoya Dou³, (1)Joint Institute for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition/ University of Maryland, College Park, MD, (2)JIFSAN/UMD, College Park, MD, (3)JIFSAN, College Park, MD

News stories

• • THE FDA AND IICA TO DEVELOP DIGITAL PLATFORMS TO PROVIDE TRAINING ON THE FSMA FOOD SAFETY LEGISLATION

Links to other “sister” projects building on CTIA work