Estimated Costs for Fruit and Vegetable Producers To Comply With the Food Safety Modernization Act’s Produce Rule

Under the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2011, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration started to implement its Produce Rule in phases beginning in 2018. Implementation of the rule will increase costs for farms supplying almost all fresh produce sold in the United States. This study estimates farm-level costs to comply with the rule by commodity, State, and farm size. Across commodities and States, differences in costs are driven by differences in farm size and range from 0.3 percent of annual produce sales for the largest farms to 6.8 percent for the smallest