Vol. 476 No. 3
164 Mr. J. Walsh asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Forestry if he will seek the necessary changes in EU regulations on animal feed compounders to ensure that they will voluntarily declare comprehensive feed ingredients in descending order in view of their clear reluctance to do so; and if so, when. [7062/97]
EU legislation requires that the label on compound feedingstuffs shows all the ingredients in descending order by weight. As an option, compounders may declare categories of ingredients in descending order by weight. As an option, compounders adopted the latter approach.
Some feed compounders have already taken steps to list ingredients by weight and others have indicated their intention to do so in the near future. I am most anxious that this should become the norm as soon as possible. To this end the Government has undertaken in Partnership 2000 to seek that licensed compounders should declare ingredients in descending order and if necessary will seek changes in EU legislation to bring this about. The timing of this will depend on ongoing developments.
