CFIA Predicts Approval of International Livestock Feeding Standards
Farmscape for May 17, 2004 (Episode 1517) The Canadian Food Inspection Agency expects the CODEX Task Force on Good Animal Feeding to approve a new international code of practice for livestock feeding this week. The CODEX Task Force on Good Animal Feeding is in Copenhagen for the next three days to hammer out the final details for a new international code of practice intended to ensure the integrity of livestock feeds and the products derived from the animals that consume them. CFIA Feed Evaluation Coordinator Judy Thompson, who heads the Canadian delegation, is confident the meeting will result in the ultimate approval of a standard to be used in the trade of feed products and animals that eat that feed. Clip-Judy Thompson-Canadian Food Inspection Agency The code basically sets out the standards that each country is expected to meet in terms of its regulatory system. It doesn't tell you exactly what you're supposed to do. It just lays out the kinds of things that should be considered and how so each country will develop regulations that fit within their regulatory mandates and with the way they do things but they all have to achieve the same outcome. It's really an outcome based document where it says the kinds of things that need to be there and then the countries figure out how to make that work. The code basically deals with the manufacture and use of feed for food producing livestock or food producing animals. The CODEX group includes a number of different countries at the table has but basically anyone that's trading internationally will be affected in that, if you don't follow the code, you likely won't be able to market your products internationally, either the food products or the animal products that are produced. Thompson says the three remaining outstanding issues include the definition of feed additives, the labeling of biotech feeds and matters related to traceability and record keeping. She says consensus building over the past couple of months has resulted in general agreement on a compromise approach and she is confident the new code will be ready to go to the CODEX Alimetarius Commission sometime in July for final approval. For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane. *Farmscape is a presentation of Sask Pork and Manitoba Pork Council