The Safe Food Act is designed to create an integrated system for inspections, labelling and enforcement of imported food
WASHINGTON, D.C. (Reuters) — U.S. lawmakers have proposed a bill that would create a single food safety agency.
It would bring together the oversight functions of the Food and Drug Administration, U.S. Department of Agriculture and other agencies.
Democratic senator Richard Durbin from Illinois and Democrat House of Representatives member Rosa DeLauro from Connecticut said the bill would create a single federal agency with an administrator directly appointed by the president.
The bill, introduced as the Safe Food Act of 2015, was co-sponsored by 10 other Democrats and aims to elevate food safety at a time when the U.S. food supply is increasingly sourced from abroad.
Read Also

Genetic resistance for anthracnose is on the way
anthracnose resistant lentil varieites are on the way according to Ana Vargas, University of Saskatchewan lentil and chickpea breeder. She also shared some management methods for the anthracnose in lentils.
“The fragmented federal food safety system and outdated laws preclude an integrated, system-wide approach to preventing food borne illness,” it said.
Forty-eight million people, or one in six Americans, suffer from food borne illness annually. More than 100,000 are hospitalized and thousands die, according to federal data.
Most of the responsibility for food safety currently lies with the FDA, while the USDA oversees meat, poultry and processed eggs.
The bill would consolidate food safety authority for inspections, enforcement and labelling, provide authority to recall unsafe food and improve foreign food import inspections.
The FDA Food Safety Modernization Act, which was signed into law January 2011, was intended to increase food safety by shifting the focus of regulators to preventing contamination rather than just responding to it.
Lawmakers say their goal now is to build on that.
They said greater public awareness of food safety makes this an opportune time to initiate change, though it would not happen overnight. They did not give an estimate of how much it would cost to create a single agency but said it would save money in the long run by improving efficiency.
DeLauro said that until the passage of the Food Safety Modernization Act, “the whole issue of food safety was a step-child at the FDA.”