Food Protection Rapid Response Team

This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) is being issued to announce the availability of up to nine (9) cooperative agreements to be awarded under a Limited Competition.These cooperative agreements are intended to develop, implement, maintain and sustain multi-jurisdictional Rapid Response Teams (RRTs) that operate using Incident Command System (ICS)/National Incident Management System (NIMS) principles and a Unified Command structure to support integrated all-hazards preparedness, response, mitigation and recovery/prevention efforts for food/feed within the national integrated food safety system.The goal of these cooperative agreements is to facilitate long-term improvements to the national integrated food safety system by unifying and coordinating federal/state/local food/feed emergency response efforts including:1) Strengthening the link among epidemiology, lab and environmental health components;2) Improving States' regulatory and surveillance food/feed protection programs (with a focus on manufactured foods) to include foodborne illness/outbreak investigations, removing tainted food from commerce, and root cause investigations; and3) Addressing supporting components, such as training, data sharing, data analysis and communications.This will be accomplished through the provision of funding for program improvement and will require extensive cooperation and coordination with FDA District Offices and other FDA program offices.Effective leveraging of resources and harmonization of efforts will require collaboration with relevant initiatives, including those of federal partners (e.g., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Food Safety and Inspection Service), national initiatives (e.g., the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act, the Integrated Food Safety System (IFSS), the National Response Framework, and the Partnership for Food Protection (PFP), and relevant associations, state, and local partners.