FDA Announces a New Cooperative Agreement Program to Improve and Integrate the 

National Animal Food Safety System

Constituent Update

September 22, 2022

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Center for Veterinary Medicine (CVM) and Office 

of Regulatory Affairs (ORA) are pleased to announce the award of the Federal and State 

Integration Activities to Advance Cooperation and Regulatory Standards Among Animal Food 

Safety Regulatory Programs cooperative agreement to the National Association of State 

Departments of Agriculture (NASDA), which has partnered with the Association of American 

Feed Control Officials (AAFCO). This cooperative agreement will facilitate long-term 

improvements to the national animal food safety system by strengthening interagency 

collaboration, improving states’ regulatory and surveillance protection programs, and 

promoting the implementation of the Animal Feed Regulatory Program Standards (AFRPS). The 

total funding for the cooperative agreement program will be up to $1.8 million over three 

years. 

The FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) gave the FDA a new public health mandate. 

The law applies to human food, as well as to animal food including animal food for pets. It 

directed the FDA to establish standards for adoption of modern animal food safety prevention 

practices by those who grow, process, transport, and store food. The cooperative agreement 

directly supports the FDA’s mandate to protect the nation’s manufactured human food and 

animal food under FSMA. Congress recognized that the more than 3,000 State, Local, 

Territorial, and Tribal (SLTT) government agencies involved in food safety, including animal food 

safety, must be fully integrated in FDA’s work to fulfill FSMA’s mandate that consumers be 

protected by an animal food safety system based on prevention and risk. This national 

integrated animal food safety system will ensure the quality, consistency, and effectiveness of 

state and federal efforts to protect the animal food supply. 

This cooperative agreement will help the FDA to leverage the strengths of both NASDA and 

AAFCO, to assist SLTT animal food programs in their efforts in facilitating long term 

improvements to the national animal food safety system and achieve integration of the system 

by strengthening interagency collaboration, improving states’ regulatory and surveillance 

protection programs, and promoting the AFRPS.

As part of the three-year cooperative agreement program, NASDA and AAFCO will work 

collaboratively with the FDA to achieve the following objectives:

• Support the efforts of federal and state government agencies to build a national 

integrated animal food safety system.

• Establish systems for sharing, promotion, and collaboration of best practices, guidance 

documents, sampling plans, procedures, memorandums of understanding, and other 
tools to facilitate and encourage mutual reliance between federal and state animal food

regulatory programs and public health agencies.

• Identifying, developing, delivering, promoting, and/or assisting with the attendance of 

animal food safety training programs to support implementation of the AFRPS, as well 

as training and stakeholder support for provisions of FSMA; and

• Support the advancement of the AFRPS and future revisions of the AFRPS as part of a 

system of continuous improvement to ensure the standards are modernized and 

support the needs of animal food regulatory programs.

“We thank FDA for entrusting the NASDA Foundation and AAFCO with the valuable work of 

helping local, state, tribal and territorial government institutions improve our national animal 

food safety system through new coordination and sharing knowledge of how to best implement 

modern food safety practices.” NASDA CEO Ted McKinney said. “We look forward to building 

further on our current work with NASDA members and AAFCO as we collectively strengthen 

animal food safety in American agriculture.”

“AAFCO is thankful for the opportunity to partner with the FDA and the NASDA Foundation as 

we work to pursue the shared goal of improving the national animal food safety system in the 

United States,“ stated Austin Therrell, AAFCO executive director. “AAFCO is committed to being 

the trusted leader that safeguards animal and human health. This additional support from the 

FDA and the NASDA Foundation will assist our association as we foster mutual reliance between 

agencies and help our state members to further strengthen their animal food regulatory and 

surveillance protection programs.”

In addition, Erik Mettler, Assistant Commissioner for Partnerships and Policy within FDA’s Office 

of Regulatory Affairs offered the following comments on the announcement of the new award, 

“The FDA and the States drive toward a common goal of an Integrated Food Safety System to 

assure the public they have access to safe food. This award strengthens interagency 

collaboration and improving states’ regulatory and surveillance protection programs for animal 

food supports our efforts to ensure a safe food supply from farm to table.”

About AAFCO

The Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO) has been guiding state, federal and 

international feed regulators with ingredient definitions, label standards and laboratory 

standards for more than 110 years, while supporting the health and safety of people and 

animals. Its members are charged by their state or federal laws to regulate the manufacture, 

sale and distribution of animal feeds and animal drug remedies. Learn more at aafco.org.

Specific questions on this program can be directed to Isaiah Isakson, the Office of Partnerships' 

contact within the Division of Partnership Investments and Agreements. For additional 

information, please view the Funding Opportunity Announcement or email the Office of 

Partnerships in FDA’s Office of Regulatory Affairs at OP.Feedback@fda.hhs.gov.