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Every day, USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) field offices work to maintain access for U.S. products in export markets around the world. When trade is disrupted, these offices step up to the plate to address the issue and work with their counterparts in Washington, D.C., the exporters, and the foreign government to ensure trade can resume.

Here in Washington, D.C., and probably where you live too, it is hot! This week’s Check Your Steps blog focuses on a timely food safety step—Chill. You may feel like this guy, but in reality we don’t recommend keeping your food cold with fans, no matter how many you can find.

Bacteria grow rapidly between 40 °F and 140 °F, and when it’s above 90 °F outside, cold food heats to those temperatures much faster. Portable coolers can be your best friend during outdoor summer activities or grocery shopping, but pack them correctly to keep food at 40 °F or below so it doesn’t spoil or make you sick.

For the past two Tuesdays as part of the Food Safe Families campaign, I’ve blogged about two basic food safety steps that are important but easy to implement in your food prep routine—cook and clean. Today, I’m going to focus on preventing a sneaky food safety hazard that can happen at many points between purchasing and eating food: cross-contamination.

Cross-contamination occurs when juices from uncooked foods come in contact with safely cooked foods, or with other raw foods that don’t need to be cooked, like fruits and vegetables. The juices from some raw foods, like meats and seafood, can contain harmful bacteria that could make you and your family sick.

[Editor's note: a version of this article was originally published in the Food Safety and Inspection Service's Small Plant News.  This post covers Rural Development loan programs available to small plants; an upcoming post will cover Rural Development grant programs.]

If you are a small packinghouse or processor and you want to expand, upgrade, or update your facility, assistance is available. As covered in the Volume 1, Number 3 issue of Small Plant News, USDA’s Rural Development is ready to offer assistance in the form of loans and grants, which this two-part series will examine.

America has one of the safest and most abundant food supplies in the world. But even in this country, too many people get sick from the food they eat.

This year, one in six Americans will get food poisoning – that’s 48 million people. 128,000 will end up in the hospital. And 3,000 will die. These aren’t just statistics. These are real people, real families, impacted by the food they put on the table.

Bacteria exist everywhere in our environment, and some of them can make us really sick. Illness-causing bacteria exist in or on food, on countertops, kitchen utensils, hands, pets, and in the dirt where food grows. As part of the Food Safe Families campaign, this week’s Check Your Steps blog focuses on cleaning before, during, and after preparing and eating food to keep your family safer from food poisoning.

While federal food safety agencies work hard every day to keep food safe before it gets to the consumer, the risk of foodborne illness has not been eliminated. One in six Americans will get food poisoning this year—that’s 48 million people. The USDA Meat & Poultry Hotline feels that it is important to give you information that can help prevent food poisoning when preparing meals at home.

Four simple behaviors—Clean, Separate, Cook, and Chill—are the focus of the new Food Safe Families campaign and can help you keep your family safe when preparing, serving and storing food. Have you seen our ad with a pig in a sauna, reminding Americans of the need to cook meat to the right temperature? We want consumers to understand that food poisoning can happen, and that there are ways to help prevent it.

Today, USDA and the Department of Health and Human Services launched a true first for our departments and our nation’s public health system. USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service partnered with the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Ad Council to debut a joint, national, multimedia public service campaign called Food Safe Families to help Americans prevent food-related illnesses in their homes. With this campaign, we’re trying to shift the way people think about food handling so they can take a more proactive, preventive approach at home to help reduce food-related illnesses.

The 2011 Hurricane Season officially began June 1. If you live in a coastal area, it’s important to be prepared, particularly when it comes to safe food and water.

The best strategy for you and your family is to always have a plan in place that everyone knows and that includes these food and water safety precautions.

In January, President Obama called upon the U.S. Department of Agriculture and all other U.S. agencies to perform a government-wide review of current federal regulations to update, streamline and remove excessive rules. This review, prompted by Executive Order 13563, was intended to minimize burdens on individuals, businesses and communities attempting to access programs that promote economic growth, improve access to resources, create jobs, and protect the health and safety of the American people.

Since then, USDA has sought public comment on best practices for simplifying and reducing reporting burdens for entry into critical programs, while reducing administrative and operating costs by sharing data across relevant agencies.  These programs range from rural economic development initiatives, to measures governing national forest usage and soil conservation, to emergency producer assistance as a result of natural disasters.