The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently announced its request for the President Biden’s 2023 fiscal year (FY) budget. FDA is requesting a total budget of $8.4 billion. Of the requested $8.4 billion, FDA wishes to allocate $43 million to food safety modernization, and $14 million to improving health equity through nutrition.

FDA hopes to build on its successes of human and animal food safety modernization activities by supporting the agency’s continued implementation of the New Era of Smarter Food Safety initiative and other food safety efforts. The requested $43 million for these causes would enable FDA to strengthen data-driven approaches to protecting consumers, allocate regulatory oversight resources based on risk, and improve FDA’s capacity to quickly respond to public health challenges. FDA also hopes to build on the food safety regulatory framework created by the Food Safety Modernization Act with improved prevention-oriented food safety practices, enhanced data sharing and predictive analytics capabilities, and better traceability. Finally, FDA would use a portion of the aforementioned $43 million to improve the U.S. animal food inspection system.

FDA’s request for $14 million to improve health equity through nutrition would support its Healthy and Safe Food for All initiative. The budget includes additional funding to reduce exposure to harmful chemicals and toxins in food. Specifically, FDA wishes to focus on protecting mothers, infants, and young children through contamination limits in food, product testing requirements, notification of interruptions in the supply of infant formula or essential medical foods, and modernization of dietary supplement regulation. 

The agency also requested $68 million for data modernization and enhanced technologies, including infrastructure aligned to food programs, and $24 million to optimize inspections, including FDA investigator recruitment and training.