Foods and Veterinary Medicine (FVM) Program’s Strategic Plan Fiscal Years 2016–2025
FDA released the Foods and Veterinary Medicine (FVM) Program’s Strategic Plan for fiscal years 2016-2025, which outlines goals and objectives for the next 10 years.
Letter from the Deputy Commissioners
We are pleased to present the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Foods and Veterinary Medicine (FVM) Program’s Strategic Plan Fiscal Years (FY)[1] 2016–2025, which outlines our goals and objectives for the next
10 years. This is an exciting time for the FVM Program. The congressionally-mandated modernization of the FDA’s regulatory framework for preventing foodborne illness is one of the most challenging initiatives in FDA’s history and will have significant public health and economic benefits. We also have many opportunities to promote and facilitate healthy food choices for the population and enhance the health of animals. It is imperative that we continue driving toward a more proactive, preventive, risk-informed approach to food and feed safety, nutrition, and animal health that makes excellent use of our scarce resources. This is essential to meet the challenges of:
- Persistent foodborne illness;
- An unacceptably high prevalence of diet-related chronic disease leading to excessive health care costs;
- Increasing globalization and complexity of the food and feed supply;
- Rapid advances in science and technology that pose both challenges and opportunities for achieving our public health goals; and
- High expectations for all of our activities among the consuming public, the industry, Congress, and a wide range of other important stakeholders.
The FVM Program[2] is responsible for a wide range of activities to meet these challenges. Our mission is to promote public health by preventing foodborne illness, fostering good nutrition, and improving the safety and efficacy of animal health products. We also ensure FDA regulations and guidance provide clear and reliable direction and assistance to industry, both inside and outside the United States, with a goal to obtain high rates of compliance with standards necessary to protect public health and meet consumer and stakeholder expectations.
The FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) enacted in 2011 is based on congressional recognition of the unique challenges faced by FDA in the area of food safety in the 21st century. This FVM Program Strategic Plan takes this statutory framework into account, places high priority on the implementation of FSMA, and focuses on how FDA plans to modernize its food safety work. This includes:
- An increased focus on obtaining compliance with preventive control standards rather than finding and responding to violations after an illness or outbreak has occurred;
- Strengthening FDA technical expertise and capacity to support FDA and industry in implementing the new prevention standards;
- Furthering federal, state, local, and territorial partnerships, and investing in training and capacity to ensure efficient, high quality, and consistent oversight nationwide; and
- Broadening interaction with foreign partners and increasing oversight of importers, who will have more responsibility for the safety of imported foods.
Beyond FSMA implementation, the FVM Program Strategic Plan for FY 2016–2025 provides greater focus on important public health goals and objectives in the areas of nutrition and chemical safety that will drive us toward our vision of protecting and enhancing the health of people and animals. Organizational excellence will remain a central strategic priority for our program to make the best use of all available resources and to continue to invest in our workforce.
The success of this plan depends on FDA working seamlessly across internal organizations; federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial regulatory partners; and international borders—as well as engaging a wide range of consumer, industry, public health, and scientific stakeholders and partners. We will continue to build the FVM program for the benefit of the people we serve. To that end, we welcome comments on this strategic plan, and we plan biannual reviews that will allow us to incorporate what we learn through our experience and from our stakeholders as we do our work in the coming years.
Stephen Ostroff
Deputy Commissioner for Foods and Veterinary Medicine
Howard R. Sklamberg
Deputy Commissioner for Global Regulatory Operations and Policy
[1] “Fiscal Year” covers the period from October 1st through September 30th
[2] Includes the Office of Foods and Veterinary Medicine (OFVM), the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN), and the Center for Veterinary Medicine (CVM), as well as the related activities under the Office of Global Regulatory Operations and Policy and the Office of Regulatory Affairs (GO/ORA)