The South Dakota Department of Agriculture will decide by early July whether to alter any of its proposed new feed regulations intended to implement a newly enacted state feed law that will impose additional requirements on manufacturers of feed and feed ingredients concerning efforts to prevent bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE). The proposed rules were the subject of a May hearing, during which witnesses testified in strong opposition to the proposed regulations.
“There is nothing, from the disease control perspective, that the added restrictions in the proposal of the state of South Dakota will contribute to an improved formula for prevention of BSE over and above what is inherent in the federal rule,” said a National Renderers Association statement presented to the South Dakota Department of Agriculture. “We urge the state of South Dakota not to implement additional rules above and beyond those of the federal government. It will only create confusion and hardship for many people involved in the rendering, feeding, and livestock industries.”
The South Dakota law requires all ruminant livestock feed manufactured or distributed within the state to be labeled as to whether it was produced by a facility that handles or stores mammalian proteins that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) prohibits from being used in ruminant feeds. While this labeling provision, which exceeds the FDA rule, technically is in effect, it is not being enforced until the regulations are final.
South Dakota’s proposed rules would also prohibit facilities that manufacture ruminant feeds for distribution or their own use from receiving, storing, or handling mammalian protein that can be used legally as a feed ingredient for non-ruminant species, a direct conflict with FDA’s regulation which permits facilities that manufacture ruminant feed to receive and use mammalian protein not allowed in ruminant feed but legally permitted in non-ruminant feed, so long as procedures are in place to prevent commingling or cross contamination. The proposed rules also prohibit persons who transport or store ruminant livestock feeds for further distribution or for their own use from handling prohibited mammalian proteins in any distribution equipment or storing such proteins in the same building with ruminant feed, again a conflict of FDA’s rule, which allows the same transportation vehicles to be used so long as they are properly cleaned to prevent commingling or cross contamination.
“We are very concerned that differing state feed laws and requirements concerning BSE, while well intended, will have unintended and negative consequences that will create confusion among the regulated industries, as well as inefficiencies and additional costs that will be borne by feed manufacturers, feeders, and consumers – without providing additional substantive food or feed safety protections,” said a joint statement by the National Grain and Feed Association, the South Dakota Grain and Feed Association, and the Pet Food Institute.
June 2001 Render