A core mission of the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture (PDA is to develop and maintainthe ability to rapidly and efficiently respond to incidents that may adversely impactPennsylvania's food and feed supply inventory. Pennsylvania provides food, fiber, and fuel to12.5 million citizens and is represented by 60,000 post-harvest food facilities, and is valued at$46.4 billion.Food safety represents a public health and economic concern which must be managed toaddress today's natural and intentional food system threats. PDA has a mandate to continue toenhance the work done on the regulatory front while creating and growing collaborative effortsthat bring agencies, non-governmental organizations, and private sector groups together toenhance the safety and security of the food supply. It is this mandate that drives PDA toimprove and modernize existing food safety protocols and to be proactive on both food securityand food safety. Under this pretense, PDA has implemented initiatives and programs to helpstrengthen the Pennsylvania food system. Some of these initiatives include food safetyresponse objective-based strategies and procedures; intra and inter-agency communications;the Food Employee Certification Program; and, continued understanding of EmergencySupport Function 11 response protocols which are primarily managed by PDA.
One of the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture's (PDA) core responsibilities is to protect public health by rapidly and efficiently responding to incidents that may adversely impact Pennsylvania's food and feed supply. On a daily basis, PDA inspects animal feed producers, agronomic products, eating and drinking establishments, food processing facilities, wholesale facilities, summer feeding programs, the National School Lunch Program, and the retail food distribution network. Pennsylvania will build a multi-agency Rapid Response Team (RRT) by achieving the following the program elements over the course of the performance period: RRT Development, Collaboration and RRT Assessment.
