IICA-JIFSAN Collaborative Training Initiative for the Americas
Untitled Document

IICA-JIFSAN - Collaborative Training Initiative for the Americas (CTIA)


JIFSAN has been working with the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation in Agriculture (IICA) to deliver fresh produce training since its inception. In 2000 they jointly delivered the first program in Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) for fresh produce. Much of JIFSAN’s and IICA’s capacity building on GAP that took place in Latin America was funded through an FDA Cooperative Agreement with JIFSAN with support for specific country programs from the private sector, FDA, USDA-Foreign Agricultural Service (USDA-FAS), and Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA).

With the release of the FSMA Produce Safety Rule (PSR) and the creation of the Collaborative Partnership Training Initiative, the ties between IICA and JIFSAN became more pronounced. Both have received funding from two separate Cooperative Agreements with FDA to roll out training in the region. The two have worked together continuously since 2016 to improve the safety of fresh produce in Latin America, and in 2017, they ramped up their efforts to roll out the PSA training. As PSA training was mandatory for market access, in July 2017, both JIFSAN and IICA teamed up with FDA’s Latin American Office to increase the number of lead trainers in the region who were certified to provide training to Spanish-speaking growers.

Below we describe key dates involving this united effort to increase those trained in produce safety. Initial efforts supporting IICA were through a FAST Agreement with USDA-FAS.  Additional funds were supplied to IICA through FDA. For trainings funded by this mechanism, lead trainers were required to train a certain number of trainers as “pay-back.”  These payback trainings are captured under the metrics work. Funding for JIFSAN came through JIFSAN’s Cooperative Agreement.

Key dates

  • • 2016: Discussions began between IICA and JIFSAN about forming a CTIA
  • • 2017: IICA and JIFSAN started rolling out produce safety trainings in Latin America with funds from USDA-FAS and FDA
  • • 2018: JIFSAN and IICA formalized the collaborative arrangement through an MOU and the CTIA was established.
  • • 2020: JIFSAN was asked by IICA to measure the impact of IICA’s first Cooperative Agreement that focused on rolling out FSPCA and Produce Safety Rule Training.
  • • 2020: JIFSAN asked to aid IICA on their second Cooperative Agreement on identifying and measuring the impact of alternative delivery mechanism which metamorphosed into evaluating the impact of supplemental training materials on the PSR
  • • 2021: Controlled experiments began

CTIA’s action to facilitate “buy-in” to have a larger multiplier effect


Metric highlights to date

Manuals and publications

  • • Currently using PSA training manuals that are translated into Spanish

Other publications/conference proceedings

News stories

Links to other “sister” projects building on CTIA work