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Open Recommendations

Food Safety: Further Action Needed to Implement Foodborne Illness Prevention Law and Assess Its Results
GAO-26-107394
Jan 07, 2026
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7 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Food and Drug Administration The Commissioner of FDA should ensure that the Human Foods Program establishes a time frame for finalizing the agency's guidance for hazard analysis and preventive controls for human food and issues the guidance as required by FSMA's section 103. (Recommendation 1)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
Food and Drug Administration The Commissioner of FDA should ensure that the Human Foods Program establishes a time frame for finalizing the agency's guidance to protect against the intentional adulteration of food and issues the guidance as required by FSMA's section 106. (Recommendation 2)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
Food and Drug Administration The Commissioner of FDA should ensure that the Human Foods Program publishes a report in 2025 on the progress in implementing a national food emergency response laboratory network, as required by FSMA's section 202. If FDA does not expect to publish a report in 2025, it should inform Congress and stakeholders, in a timely manner, of when it expects to publish the report. (Recommendation 3)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
Food and Drug Administration The Commissioner of FDA should ensure that the Human Foods Program establishes milestones and timelines for publishing future reports on the progress in implementing a national food emergency response laboratory network and publishes the reports as required by FSMA's section 202. (Recommendation 4)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
Food and Drug Administration The Commissioner of FDA should ensure that the Human Foods Program establishes milestones and timelines for updating the agency's good agricultural practices for fruits and vegetables and publishes them as required by FSMA's section 105. (Recommendation 5)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
Food and Drug Administration The Commissioner of FDA should ensure that the Human Foods Program develops a plan with milestones and timelines for establishing a product tracing system to enhance FDA's existing foodborne outbreak response processes, and establishes the system as required by FSMA's section 204. (Recommendation 6)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.

Nutrition Assistance: USDA Should Comprehensively Assess Benefit Theft Prevention Measures States Are Implementing
GAO-25-107964
Sep 25, 2025
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Agriculture The Secretary of Agriculture should continually ensure that FNS comprehensively assesses the extent to which state SNAP agencies are implementing benefit theft prevention measures, including those it recommended, and use that assessment to consider how it can identify areas for improvement or additional assistance. Such an assessment could be carried out through existing mechanisms, such as through continued coordination with EBT processors or FNS's management evaluations that review states' EBT systems. (Recommendation 1)
Open
USDA did not comment on our recommendation. We will monitor the agency's progress to implement this recommendation.

Dairy Farmers: USDA Should Assess the Effectiveness of Its Communications Regarding Key Program Benefits
GAO-25-106595
Jul 31, 2025
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Agriculture The Secretary of Agriculture should direct FSA to assess the effectiveness of its methods for communicating with dairy farmers about the DMC program. This effort should include developing performance metrics, such as changes in participation rates by veteran and beginning farmers, that could be used to measure progress toward agency objectives. (Recommendation 1)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.

Child Nutrition Programs: USDA Could Enhance Its Management and Oversight of State Administrative Expense Funds
GAO-25-106977
May 29, 2025
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4 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Agriculture The Secretary of Agriculture should direct the Food and Nutrition Service to identify changes that would help improve SAE allocations and processes and determine how it could implement those changes, including by pursuing any regulatory changes or requesting any necessary statutory authority. (Recommendation 1)
Open
USDA agreed with this recommendation, noting that it aligns with the agency's guiding principles and priorities of executing programs with integrity and accountability. USDA stated that efforts are already underway to address it, including reviewing and taking actions consistent with the 2020 study the agency commissioned to assess the SAE funding formula and present a series of options to potentially improve SAE allocations and procedures. We await further progress on this recommendation.
Department of Agriculture The Secretary of Agriculture should direct the Food and Nutrition Service to identify specific steps it can take to help ensure the agency has current information on states' planned budgets and activities for using SAE funds, such as better communicating expectations for submission of SAE plans or working with Congress to consider whether the frequency with which these are submitted needs to be revised. (Recommendation 2)
Open
USDA agreed with this recommendation, noting that it aligns with the agency's guiding principles and priorities of executing programs with integrity and accountability. USDA plans to provide more detailed responses on its actions within 180 days. We await further information and progress on this recommendation.
Department of Agriculture The Secretary of Agriculture should ensure the Food and Nutrition Service establishes timeliness goals or other targets to ensure states take corrective action on SAE compliance review findings in a timely manner. (Recommendation 3)
Open
USDA agreed with this recommendation, noting that it aligns with the agency's guiding principles and priorities of executing programs with integrity and accountability. USDA plans to provide more detailed responses on its actions within 180 days. We await further information and progress on this recommendation.
Department of Agriculture The Secretary of Agriculture should ensure the Food and Nutrition Service updates its SAE guidance to reflect current SAE grant requirements and is useful to state agency personnel responsible for compliance. (Recommendation 4)
Open
USDA agreed with this recommendation, noting that it aligns with the agency's guiding principles and priorities of executing programs with integrity and accountability. USDA plans to provide more detailed responses on its actions within 180 days. We await further information and progress on this recommendation.
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