21 U.S.C. § 2203 — Food and Agriculture Coordinating Councils

This section requires a yearly report on food and farm safety teamwork. The Secretary of Homeland Security must write it. The Secretary works with the Secretary of Health and Human Services and the Secretary of Agriculture. The first report was due within 180 days of January 4, 2011. A new report is due every year after that. The Secretary of Homeland Security must send the report to Congress. The Secretary must also post it online, on the Department of Homeland Security's website. The report must cover two councils. These are the Food and Agriculture Government Coordinating Council and the Food and Agriculture Sector Coordinating Council. The report must track their progress on four things. First, building ties between public and private groups to protect the U.S. food system. Second, sharing information, including intelligence, about food system safety between the two councils. Third, finding good ways to coordinate safety plans among federal, state, local, and private groups. Fourth, suggesting ways to protect the economy and health from animal or plant disease, food contamination, and natural disasters that hit farming and food.

The record. According to the source credit, this section was enacted as part of Public Law 111-353, title I, § 109, approved January 4, 2011, and published at 124 Stat. 3912. The source credit reflects no subsequent amendment to the section's text since its original enactment. Historical context. Public Law 111-353 is commonly known as the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act, a broad statute generally understood to have reformed federal food safety authority by shifting emphasis toward prevention of contamination rather than response after the fact. The Act is commonly associated with a series of high-profile foodborne illness outbreaks in the years preceding its passage, which are generally cited as having prompted congressional interest in strengthening oversight of the food supply chain. Within that broader effort, this section's placement in Title I suggests it was intended to formalize reporting obligations related to interagency coordination on food and agriculture security, an area that reflects ongoing concerns—generally traced to post-2001 homeland security initiatives—about protecting the food and agriculture sector from deliberate contamination, disease outbreaks, and natural disasters. However, the record here does not establish the specific legislative reasoning, committee deliberations, or particular events that led Congress to require this reporting mechanism on the Food and Agriculture Government and Sector Coordinating Councils. Beyond the general purposes commonly attributed to the Act as a whole, the specific intent behind this provision is not documented in the material provided.