Fern

The Food Emergency Response Network (FERN) integrates the nation's food-testing laboratories at the local, state, and federal levels into a network that is able to respond to emergencies involving biological, chemical, or radiological contamination of food. The FERN structure is organized to ensure federal and state inter-agency participation and cooperation in the formation, development, and operation of the network.

FERN REGIONS & LABORATORIES

The FERN plays a number of critical roles related to food security and food defense. These include:

• Prevention.

  FERN provides a national surveillance program thai will offer early means of detecting threat agents in the American food supply;

• Preparedness.

  FERN prepares the nation's laboratories to be able to respond to food-related emergencies;

• Response.

  FERN offers significant surge capacity that will strengthen the nation's response towards widespread complex emergencies, intentional or inadvertent related to agents in food; and

• Recovery.

  The FERN network of laboratories enhances the ability of the country to restore confidence in the food supply following a threat or an actual emergency targeting the nation's food supply.