# FSIS FERN Cooperative Agreement Program

Source: https://welltoldgrants.com/grants/fsis-03142024-fsis-fern-cooperative-agreement-program/  
Official notice: https://www.grants.gov/search-results-detail/352962

> Food Safety Inspection Service offered grants of up to $246,875 (at least $230,000) to the applicants described in the notice. It expected to make about 8 awards worth $2.0 million in total. Applications closed on April 22, 2024.

| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Opportunity number | FSIS-03142024 |
| Agency | Food Safety Inspection Service |
| Status | Forecast |
| Deadline | April 22, 2024 |
| Award ceiling | $246,875 |
| Award floor | $230,000 |
| Expected awards | 8 |
| Total funding | $2.0 million |
| Cost sharing | not required |
| Assistance Listings | 10.479 |

## Who can apply

- Others (see text field entitled "Additional Information on Eligibility" for clarification)

Eligible Applicants – Only FERN member laboratories with active status in the FERN CCM Portal (www.fernlab.org ) are eligible for funding. This includes Public or State Higher Education Institutions, State Governments, County Governments and Federally Recognized Indian and Native American Tribal Governments. Submissions from laboratories that are not FERN members or FERN members with an inactive status on the proposal submission due date, April 22, 2024, will not be reviewed and will not be eligible for funding.

## What the grant funds

The Food Emergency Response Network (FERN) currently comprises federal, state, and local government regulatory laboratories with varying capacities to perform threat agent testing. The Contaminants and Threat Agents Group (CTAG) within the Laboratory Quality Assurance, Response and Coordination Staff (LQARCS) in USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) is seeking to award new cooperative agreements thereby continuing its program of providing surge capacity and capability for food defense and food safety testing to FSIS. The agreements enhance the ability to analyze meat, poultry, and meat and egg products for microbiological, chemical, and radiological agents utilizing approved FERN methods to improve laboratory capacities for food defense initiatives, outbreak response, and other food testing projects. The agreements support the FERN program testing initiatives, method proficiency training, method-required supply and equipment purchases, and reimbursement of personnel expenses. All cooperative agreements are awarded yearly and part of a 5-year cycle. This announcement will constitute the 1st year of a 5-year cycle. Yearly awards are contingent upon continued Agency funding and a review of each laboratory participant’s past performance where possible. The FSIS FERN CAP laboratories will test FSIS regulated products in a variety of food defense and food safety activities providing additional meat, poultry, and meat and egg products testing capacity and capability to the FSIS Field Service Laboratories. These activities support FSIS’s mission to protect the public's health by ensuring that meat, poultry and egg products are safe, wholesome and properly labeled. The FERN CAP initiatives allow the selected laboratories to provide surge capacity and special project testing for food defense and food safety topics. Laboratories will be involved in on-going testing of meat matrices for food safety and food defense analytes, method development, method validation, and special directed projects that meet FSIS data gathering needs. Long term planning is not always possible for these activities, so laboratories with the capability to respond quickly and with the greatest variety of capabilities are preferred.

## Questions people ask

### Is FSIS-03142024 still open?

No. It closed on April 22, 2024.

### Who can apply for FSIS FERN Cooperative Agreement Program?

Food Safety Inspection Service accepted applications from the applicants described in the notice. The notice adds further conditions, so read its eligibility section.

### What is the deadline for FSIS FERN Cooperative Agreement Program?

Closed April 22, 2024. Applications are no longer accepted; the program's newer notices are on this page when there are any.

### How much funding is available?

Awards of up to $246,875 each. About $2.0 million in total across about 8 awards.

### Who has won Food Safety Cooperative Agreements grants before?

The largest recipients over five fiscal years were Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, Minnesota Department of Agriculture, Health Research, Inc. The program made 58 awards worth $13.7 million in that time.