Estimated cost for producers to comply with FSMA produce rule

This study estimates farm-level costs to comply with the Food Safety Modernization Act's Produce Safety 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.As part of the rule-making process, FDA estimated the cost of compliance with the Produce Rule for a few broad categories of farms distinguished by annual produce sales value and exemption status. In its analysis, FDA estimated the total costs of compliance to be $368 million for domestic farms (annualized over 10 years, using a 7-percent discount rate) but did not estimate the costs by commodities or regions. Using those original FDA estimates, this study provides estimates of the cost of compliance with the Produce Rule by commodity, State, and farm size (based on sales).