A series of public meetings on the system ends mid-March, though it is likely that additional events will be scheduled, said Graham Cooper, executive director with the Animal Nutrition Association of Canada (ANAC). At this time, comments are also due by mid-March.
“We’ve got quite a lot of input from our membership and we’re starting to draft our official response to CFIA,” he told FeedNavigator. “We’re going to aim for 18 March, but the likelihood is it [the response deadline] will be extended.”
Details of the framework that consolidate three updated sections of feed regulation were released at the end of December, he said.
Once the consultation period closes, the submitted industry comments will be reviewed by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) and a final version of the text that will make up policy will be written, said Cooper. “We’ll hope to see that sometime around the end of 2016,”
“Once the regulation is decided on, then there is a great deal of work to do on education of industry and inspectors and the phase in,” he said. “We’re still a long way from the finish line, but it’s heading in the right direction.”
Plan overviews
The framework seeks to establish a more transparent and flexible assessment for feed ingredients and authorization, said CFIA officials, along with updating the list of authorized feed ingredients and limiting products that need pre-market registration.
It also includes a move toward preventive controls to address feed safety and boosting oversight of feed imports and exports, they said.
The previous regulatory standards have been in place since about 1983, said Cooper, who added the new legislation should see more flexibility for the Canadian feed sector.
“The previous regulations tended to focus on nutrient content of the feed,” he said. “It was almost trying to regulate how a nutritionist formulates feed. Now many of the nutrient minimums and maximums have been done away with, and the focus is on safety, not nutrient content.”
The review process has already addressed three separate modules relating to feed and feed safety, he said. These include ingredient classification proposals, feed and feed ingredient labeling and a module on preventive controls.
Work reforming the three areas started in 2013, he said. ANAC has been a part of the feed regulatory input group during the designing of the different parts of the system.
Industry responses
It remains important for companies to weigh in on the new regulatory system because they can offer specific insight on pertinent areas, said Cooper.
“We do have some concerns over parts of it, but, in general, the reaction we’re getting is positive because it’s now an outcome-based approach as opposed to a prescriptive-type approach,” he said. “It enables companies to be flexible in terms of meeting the safety requirements.”
In general, the areas of concern in the comments gathered by ANAC include the use of permissions or licenses for feed establishments, multilingual or bilingual requirements, how ingredients are to be listed on the label and the potential for uneven enforcement between the commercial and on-farm levels, group officials said.
Other comments sought more information about responsibilities for protecting plants and the environment and who is responsible for demonstrating risks from nutrient maximums, they said.
Contact details
Input on the consolidated frame work can be mailed to the Animal Feed Division of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency at 59 Camelot Drive in Ottawa, Ontario or it can be sent to: sergio.tolusso@inspection.gc.ca.
Comments also can be sent to ANAC, added Cooper.