Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 30 September 2015
99. Deputy Michael Colreavy asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the procedures in place to deal with complaints from farmers regarding the nutritional value of animal feedstuffs purchased and whether his Department will initiate legal action in the event of breaches of the minimum nutritional value of such feedstuffs. [33463/15]
View answerThe EU Regulation (EC) No 767/2009 on the placing on the market and use of feed requires that manufacturers of feed ensure that the product is sound, genuine, unadulterated, fit for purpose and of merchantable quality. In addition, Article 11 of this Regulation provides that the labelling and presentation of feed shall not mislead the user as to, inter alia, its composition, properties, nature or method of manufacture. Furthermore, Annex IV of this Regulation lists permitted tolerances for the compositional labelling of feed materials or compound feed as referred to in Article 11(5). Accordingly, feed manufacturers are required to set out clearly on a label the composition of the animal feed for sale, within the permitted tolerances.
If it is the case that an end-user of animal feeding stuffs is of the view that the composition of a feed is at variance with its label details, they should raise this matter directly with the feed manufacturer in the first instance. Failing a satisfactory resolution or if the end-user sees fit, they also have the option to have a sample of the feed in question independently analysed, at their own expense. The end user may report the issue to my Department. My Department will, if appropriate, follow up the issue separately with the feed manufacturer. In the event that an animal feeding stuff is found to be in contravention of the permitted tolerances, my Department will carry out appropriate follow-up and enforcement action, as required, with the feed manufacturer, in line with Statutory Instrument 432 of 2009 entitled European Communities (Food and Feed Hygiene) Regulations, 2009.
For animal feed, approximately 1,200 inspections are conducted and up to 1,500 samples are taken annually by DAFM officials and sent to accredited laboratories for various analyses, for example to determine the presence of animal proteins, banned or undesirable biological, chemical and physical substances, as well as quality controls such as protein and ash content, etc.
