Agriculture: European Parliament Returns To The Attack On Animal Feed

Agriculture: European Parliament Returns To The Attack On Animal Feed

Against the backdrop of several scandals directly or indirectly related to animal feed, notably the Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) crisis, dioxin contamination of poultry and cases of salmonella poisoning, the rapporteur could but applaud the Commission proposal to require complete and detailed information on the feed materials in compound feed: the proposal is positive to the extent that it aims to replace the semi-open declaration of ingredients in animal feed with the mandatory indication of constituent materials, including the percentage content of these ingredients.


Moreover, it will no longer be possible to indicate ingredient categories instead of specific materials.--Recent initiatives to tighten up EU policy on animal feed were lalaunched through the European Commission's January 2000 White Paper on food safety, which includes a section on "animal feed: tightening limit values for undesirable substances" (COM (1999) 654), and the proposed amendment to the new Regulation on novel foods, in order to improve provisions concerning official controls on animal feed (COM (2000) 162).--Current shortcomings.The current legal situation is not satisfactory, specifying only that for animals other than pets, the ingredients of compound feed are to be listed in descending order of their proportions by weight (semi-open declaration, Article 5c(2) of Directive 79/373/EEC). For domestic pets, there is at present the option of listing the content of ingredients of feed (voluntary open declaration). The industry does not have to indicate the actual ingredients of feed, but has only to indicate the category, pursuant to Directive 91/357/EEC (thus, for example, the category of oils and fats can contain not only various vegetable oils but also animal fat, fish oil, tallow, bone fat or greaves).Objections from industry.The feed industry rejects the Commission's proposal on the grounds that precise information on the nutritional value is more important for the farmer than information about the ingredients. Moreover, the compound is changing constantly, to guarantee continuity of ingredients, and it is also important to guarantee protection of intellectual property and companies' specific feed formulae. The cost of monitoring would be too high, in particular with the Commission's proposal that not only should laboratory checks be used, but also the company's internal papers, records or delivery documents. The rapporteur responds that the Commission proposal does not set out to "replace information about nutrients with information about ingredients". The fluctuations in the composition of compound feed are a problem which could be solved within the framework of implementing provisions. Friedrich-Wilhelm Graefe zu Baringdorf proposes, for example, introducing a maximum 10% tolerance in the nominal value when testing the compound (thus a variation in the content of rape meal of 27-33% could be tolerated where the indication given is "rape meal 30%"). Finally, as regards protection of the intellectual property of the feed formulae, the rapporteur shares the Commission's view that there is actually no breach of commercial confidentiality, because there are normally no patented feed formulae and because the formula could not be kept as a secret.Draft Opinions.The Parliamentary Committee also approved two draft Opinions. One concerns the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive on undesirable substances and products in animal nutrition (COM(1999) 654) (arsenic, lead, fluorine, mercury, nitrates, cadmium, volatile mustard oil, PCBs and others), and the second, the European Commission's 22 March proposal for a Council Directive on undesirable substances and products in animal nutrition: official controls, undesirable substances and products (amending Directive 95/53/EC) (see European Report No 2486 for further details).

Refer: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0WXI/is_2000_Sept_20/ai_65327818