The Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (MDARD) Animal Food Program (AFP) Animal Feed Regulatory ProgramStandards (AFRPS) Maintenance Track

The Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (MDARD) Animal Feed Program (AFP) will enhance animal feed safety through the Animal Food Regulatory Program Standards (AFRPS) Maintenance Track. The AFRPS cooperative agreement will maintain best practices, enhance animal food safety and better direct regulatory activities aimed at reducing foodborne illness attributed to animal feed safety hazards. Additionally, maintaining and improving the eleven standards will provide greater efficiency, acceptance by FDA of MDARD AFP field inspections and laboratory data, improve data quality and response time. In this cooperative agreement proposal, MDARD AFP outlines goals and objectives on how it will maintain a comprehensive strategic plan to continue significant conformance to AFRPS. In this proposal, MDARD AFP also establishes its ability to continue working with the state laboratory in order to guarantee valid and defensible laboratory testing data to protect human and animal health. The continuous improvement of MDARD's AFP through AFRPS will assist both Michigan and the FDA to better direct regulatory activities toward increasing food safety in the United States and move closer to the goal of creating a national, fully integrated food safety system.