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Judy Thompson
- Canadian Food Inspection Agency |
| Farmscape for September 11, 2003 (Episode 1340)
A new international code of practice for feeding livestock could be in place by next fall.
In May the Codex Ad Hoc Intergovernmental Task Force on Animal Feeding completed what was to have been the final draft of a proposed international code of practice for animal feed manufacturing and animal feeding.
Failure to resolve a number of concerns prompted the Codex commission to extend the task force mandate by one year.
Judy Thompson, the head of the Canadian Delegation, says four key issues remain outstanding.
Clip-Judy Thompson-Canadian Food Inspection Agency
The first issue is the definition of feed additives.
The European Community is unhappy with the current definition as they don't feel that it covers all of the items they consider to be feed additives.
Things like enzymes, amino acids, vitamins aren't covered by it so they would like to see some kind of an extension of the definition.
The second issue is paragraph 11, which speaks to the labelling of feeds that contain genetically modified organisms.
This is an issue for many countries in that, if there's no safety concerns with a specific product that labelling really is inappropriate and, if there are safety concerns in that the feed shouldn't be fed then labelling might be enough.
There's concerns that that's not an appropriate mechanism for managing those particular issues.
The last two issues are kind of the same issue.
Paragraphs 12 and 13 talk about traceability and product tracing and there's quite a bit of detail in there about the types of records that are needed to be maintained to meet the code of practice.
There's some concerns, especially by the developing countries that there may be too much detail in there and it might keep them out of the marketplace internationally.
Comments on a proposed compromise are being accepted until December and the task force will meet in May in an effort to resolve the outstanding issues.
Thompson says, if the concerns can be addressed, an international code of practice could be adopted by next fall.
For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.
*Farmscape is a presentation of Sask Pork and Manitoba Pork Council |
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| Keywords: traceability, market |
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© Wonderworks Canada
2003 |
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