Iowa- AFRPS Maintenance and Mutual Reliance

Project Summary Our focus will be on maintaining our compliance with the Animal Feed Regulatory Program Standards (AFRPS) and to improve our processes under the AFRPS standards by developing policies and procedures, strengthening collaborations, and conducting program self- assessment to maintain and improve conformance with the standards. We intend to focus on 4 main areas to reach these goals. The first area will be to ensure we maintain our full implementation by working closely with the FDA for both planning and determination of regulatory activities to be taken. In addition, we will undergo and respond to regular assessments to maintain our conformance to the standards. The second area of focus will be on continuous improvement. Through the annual Face to Face Meetings and attendance at other meetings (AAFCO, Feed Administrators Seminar, etc) we will learn best practices from other state regulatory agencies as well as sharing our own with them. By evaluation and implementation of those best practices we should be able to continuously improve our program and streamline our processes. Thirdly, we will support the Laboratory Flexible Funding Model (LFFM) for the Iowa Laboratory Facility by coordinating with FDA on our response to violative samples, working with the laboratory to collect samples for them that meet the definitions of the LFFM. In addition, we will use the correct resources to work with both the laboratory and FDA to investigate violative samples. The Iowa Laboratory Facility is a FERN laboratory and so capacity evaluation should be adequate. Finally, we will continue to develop our auditing program. We currently have one qualified auditor, but plan to identify and train a second so that we will be able to do all required audits in-house by the end of the 3 year period covered by this grant. Meeting these combined goals will help the Commercial Feed and Fertilizer Bureau to protect public health by having policies and procedures in place to maintain a high quality animal feeds regulatory program.