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Open Recommendations (84 total)

School Meals: USDA Should Address Challenges in Its “Foods in Schools” Program

GAO-23-105697
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Agriculture The Secretary of Agriculture should ensure that the Administrator of FNS establishes guidelines for timely communication with states on the USDA Foods in Schools program. For example, the guidelines could distinguish response times regarding specific orders and general policy questions. (Recommendation 2)
Open
USDA agreed with this recommendation. The agency said it would seek input from state agencies about the best way to meet their needs regarding communication for USDA Foods in Schools. USDA also said its Food and Nutrition Service and Agricultural Marketing Service would work jointly to ensure communication is as timely as possible and develop guidelines for response times by September 30, 2024. We will monitor the progress of these efforts and await the establishment of guidelines.

Genetically Engineered Crops: USDA Needs to Enhance Oversight and Better Understand Impacts of Unintended Mixing with Other Crops

GAO-16-241
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Agriculture To improve USDA's ability to better understand the economic impacts of unintended mixing of GE and other crops, the Secretary of Agriculture should direct the Administrator of the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) to work with all relevant USDA stakeholders, including APHIS and the Organic Working Group, to determine what additional information should be sought in future organic surveys, such as the costs of reshipping and re-storing shipments rejected because of unintended GE presence, as well as the costs associated with finding new buyers for such shipments.
Open
In its August 2016 Statement of Action on our report, USDA did not provide any new information on actions it has taken, if any, to implement this recommendation. For example, there was no indication whether stakeholders internal to the department had continued to meet to discuss the 2014 Organic Survey results and how to move forward with future survey questions to obtain additional data, such as data needed to better understand the economic impacts of unintended mixing with GE crops. As of February 2022, USDA did not have an update regarding the implementation of this recommendation. We will continue to follow up on USDA's efforts. As of December 2023, we are following up with USDA and will update this recommendation when we have additional information.

Foreign Investments in U.S. Agricultural Land: Enhancing Efforts to Collect, Track, and Share Key Information Could Better Identify National Security Risks

GAO-24-106337
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Agriculture The Secretary of Agriculture should direct the Chief Operating Officer of FPAC-BC to ensure its AFIDA reporting is complete, such as incorporating country information from additional foreign persons beyond the primary investor when available. (Recommendation 6)
Open
USDA generally concurred with this recommendation. As of March 2024, we have not received any additional information.

IT Modernization: USDA Needs to Improve Oversight of Farm Production and Conservation Mission Area

GAO-21-512
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1 Open Recommendations
1 Priority
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Agriculture
Priority Rec.
The Secretary of Agriculture should ensure that the Under Secretary for Farm Production and Conservation (FPAC) directs the Assistant Chief Information Officer to have the FPAC mission area develop a strategic plan, in alignment with departmental policies and procedures, to include performance goals and measures for maximizing efficiencies and reducing IT duplication and overlap. (Recommendation 12)
Open
As of February 2024, the department stated that FPAC's mission area IT strategic plan was still in the review and approval process. Agency officials did not provide an estimated completion date. We will continue to monitor the status of this recommendation.

Cloud Security: Selected Agencies Need to Fully Implement Key Practices

GAO-23-105482
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Agriculture The Secretary of Agriculture should ensure that the agency fully implements continuous monitoring for its selected PaaS system, to include reviewing the continuous monitoring deliverables from the CSP and committing to a time frame to review audit logs. (Recommendation 2)
Open – Partially Addressed
In September 2023, Agriculture officials described their plans for addressing our recommendation. Specifically, the officials stated that they plan to develop and adopt procedures that detail the process for implementing and documenting continuous monitoring for its selected system. According to the officials, the procedures would include the review of continuous monitoring deliverables from the cloud service provider, and the frequency for review of audit logs. In January 2024, the agency provided documentation of its continuous monitoring procedures. The procedures including, among other things, steps for reviewing the continuous monitoring deliverables from the CSP. However, the agency did not provide documentation showing that these efforts were implemented. We will continue to monitor the agency's efforts to address our recommendation.

Agency Relocations: Following Leading Practices Will Better Position USDA to Mitigate the Ongoing Impacts on Its Workforce

GAO-23-104709
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Agriculture The Secretary of Agriculture should expand the departmental regulation on reorganizations to apply its guidance to all departmental reorganizations and require documentation of the reasons for any deviation from the departmental regulation, including for decisions by the Secretary to do so. (Recommendation 2)
Open
As of August 2023, USDA was in the process of reviewing its departmental regulation on reorganization. Officials stated that they may consider the recommended expansion and documentation requirements but had not done so yet. GAO will re-evaluate the status of the recommendation once the departmental regulation is finalized.

School Meals: USDA Should Address Challenges in Its “Foods in Schools” Program

GAO-23-105697
Show
1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Agriculture The Secretary of Agriculture should ensure that the Administrator of FNS systematically identifies and shares promising practices and lessons learned with states related to the USDA Foods in Schools program, for example, by creating a repository or toolkit on the agency's public website that is accessible to all states. (Recommendation 3)
Open
USDA agreed with this recommendation. The agency said it supports a variety of efforts to facilitate the sharing of promising practices through promoting state interaction and communication. By September 30, 2024, USDA said it will assess the multitude of resources available on the USDA Foods in Schools program and include additional resources as needed. USDA said it will also ensure those same resources are available in a repository on the public website. We will monitor the progress of these efforts.

Genetically Engineered Crops: USDA Needs to Enhance Oversight and Better Understand Impacts of Unintended Mixing with Other Crops

GAO-16-241
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Agriculture To improve USDA's ability to better understand the economic impacts of unintended mixing of GE and other crops, the Secretary of Agriculture should direct the Administrator of NASS to include producers, growing identity-preserved crops, in addition to organic producers in USDA's survey efforts.
Open
In its August 2016 Statement of Action on our report, USDA did not provide any new information on actions it has taken, if any, to implement this recommendation. We continue to believe that USDA should survey producers growing identity-preserved crops regarding their potential economic losses from unintended GE presence, as is being done for organic producers. As we previously reported, U.S. acreage planted to identity-preserved crops is significantly greater than that planted to organic crops; yet, little is known about the economic costs to identity-preserved farmers of unintended mixing. As of February 2022, USDA did not have an update regarding the implementation of this recommendation. We will continue to follow up on USDA's efforts. As of December 2023, we are following up with USDA and will update this recommendation when we have additional information.

Federal Software Licenses: Agencies Need to Take Action to Achieve Additional Savings

GAO-24-105717
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Agriculture The Secretary of Agriculture should ensure that the agency tracks software licenses that are currently in use for its widely used licenses by, at a minimum, consistently implementing its procedures for tracking license usage. (Recommendation 1)
Open
The Department of Agriculture generally concurred with this recommendation. When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.

IT Modernization: USDA Needs to Improve Oversight of Farm Production and Conservation Mission Area

GAO-21-512
Show
1 Open Recommendations
1 Priority
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Agriculture
Priority Rec.
The Secretary of Agriculture should ensure that the Under Secretary for Farm Production and Conservation (FPAC) directs the Assistant Chief Information Officer to have the FPAC mission area monitor IT program performance against efficiency goals and measures documented in its plan for maximizing efficiencies and reducing IT duplication and overlap. (Recommendation 13)
Open
In August 2023, agency officials noted that they were developing metrics dependent on the FPAC IT strategic plan. However, as of February 2024, the IT strategic plan was still in the review approval process. We will continue to monitor the status of this recommendation.
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