OpportunityTitle: FSIS FERN Cooperative Agreement Program
AdditionalInformationOnEligibility: Only FERN member laboratories with active status in the FERN CCM Portal (www.fernlab.org ) are eligible for funding.  This includes Higher Education Institutions (Public/State controlled), State Governments, County Governments and Federally Recognized Indian/Native American Tribal Governments.  Submissions from laboratories that are either not FERN members or FERN members with an inactive status on the proposal submission due date, April 10, 2020, will not be reviewed and will not be eligible for funding.
Description: The FSIS FERN Cooperative Agreement program provides FSIS food defense capacity and supports the agency&#8217;s mission of food safety in the event of a national emergency. Any or all of the CAP initiatives may allow the selected laboratories to provide surge capacity testing for food defense events and special project testing for food defense and/or food safety topics. Laboratories will be involved in on-going testing of food matrices for food defense analytes, method development, method validation, and special directed projects that meet FSIS food safety 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 will be necessary to support the needs of FSIS.
GrantorContactEmailDescription: USDA-FSIS-FERN
GrantorContactText: Robert W Phillips &lt;br/&gt;Senior Microbiologist &lt;br/&gt;Phone 706-546-2349