Rethink on animal feed legislation urged

Legislation on animal feed should be revised as a matter of priority and the enforcement of controls harmonised across Europe, the Irish Food Safety Authority (IFSA) has said.

Recent food scares had demonstrated that the existing rules and their enforcement were not adequate to prevent the contamination of animal feed by toxic substances like dioxin, the IFSA said in a response to the EU White Paper on Food Safety. There are major concerns that need to be addressed to ensure consumer protection and maintain confidence in food produced from animals, it adds.

It proposes a qualitative and quantitative declaration for all ingredients in feedstuffs; the agreement of a list of prohibited materials and maximum residue limits for certain chemical additives. It suggests including animal feed in the European Rapid Alert system to ensure traceability; obliging member states to monitor contamination; limit the use of antibiotics in food and label feed with directions for use and withdrawal times for medicated feeds.

The White Paper was published in January and proposes setting up a European Food Agency which would gather independent scientific advice, operate a rapid alert system in the case of food scares, provide information and advice to the public on food safety and health issues and liaise with national food safety authorities and scientific bodies.

While agreeing with many of the proposals, the Irish agency questions whether scandals like the dioxin scare in Belgium and the sewage sludge incident in France would have occurred 12 years after animal feed was identified as the source of the BSE problem if such a European body had been put in place earlier.

On risk assessment in the food industry, the authority says information data collection systems will have to be established on human and animal infections and food contamination.

On monitoring and surveillance, it says that unless everyone is following the same protocols, then results will not be comparable and scientific advice based on the findings will be biased. "Poor results may impact on a particular country's trading potential and will jeopardise the openness and transparency that consumers deserve."