FDA proposed the most sweeping food safety rules in decades, requiring farmers and food companies to be more cautious in the wake of deadly outbreaks in peanuts, cantaloupe  ,and leafy greens. The long-overdue regulations are aimed at reducing the estimated 3,000 deaths a year from foodbome illness. Just since last summer, outbreaks of listeria  in cheese and salmonella in peanut butter, cantaloupe and mangoes have been linked to more than 400 illnesses and as many as seven deaths, according to the Centers for Disease Control. The actual number of those sickened is likely much higher. The FDA's proposed rules would require farmers to take new precautions against contamination  ,to include making sure workers5 hands are washed, irrigation   water is clean, and that animals stay out of fields. Food manufacturers will have to submit food safety plans to the government to show _ are keeping their operations clean. Many responsible food companies and farmers are already following the steps that the FDA would now require them to take. But officials say the requirements could have saved lives and prevented illnesses in some of the large-scale outbreaks that have hit the country in recent years. In a 2011 outbreak of listeria in cantaloupe that claimed 33 lives ,for example, FDA inspectors found pools of dirty water on the floor and old, dirty processing equipment at the Colorado farm where the cantaloupes were grown. In a peanut butter outbreak this year linked to 42 salmonella illnesses ,inspectors found samples of salmonella throughout a New Mexico peanut processing plant and multiple obvious safety problems ,such as birds flying over uncovered trucks of peanuts and employees not washing their hands. Under the new rules, companies would have to lay out plans for preventing those sorts of problems and how they would correct them. "The rules go very directly to preventing the types of outbreaks we have seen/,said Michael Taylor, FDA's deputy commissioner for foods. According to the passage, the new rules focus on  _  .
inspecting the whole process of food production improving food processing equipment on farms preventing water pollution in food production urging food companies to lay out plans