Animal Health Australia (AHA) coordinates the ruminant feed ban as part of Australia’s commitment to retain its TSE free status.
Australia has an inclusive ban on the feeding to all ruminants of all meals, including meat and bone meal (MBM), derived from all vertebrates, including fish and birds.
What is the ruminant feed ban?
Australia has an inclusive ban on the feeding to all ruminants of all meals, including meat and bone meal (MBM), derived from all vertebrates, including fish and birds.
Since 1996, the Australian Ruminant Feed Ban has helped prevent the establishment of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in Australia. The ban was introduced by the Australian livestock and stock feed industries and was legislated in all states and territories of Australia in 1997. The ban ensures the provision of safe beef, and beef products, to international markets.
International markets seek assurances from Australia and other importing nations, that there are appropriate measures in place to ensure that Restricted Animal Material (RAM) is not being fed to ruminant livestock species (e.g. cattle, sheep, goats or deer). The legislation and associated policing of these provisions are aimed at providing such assurances.
All states and territories have now adopted in their respective legislation the term ‘restricted animal material’ (RAM) to describe animal meals that cannot be fed to ruminants, being any meal derived from vertebrate animal origin, including fish and birds.
Definitions
RAM is defined as any material taken from a vertebrate animal other than tallow, gelatin, milk products or oils. It includes rendered products, such as blood meal, meat meal, meat and bone meal, fish meal, poultry meal, eggs, feather meal, and compounded feeds made from these products.
Tallow and oils are defined as ‘any product (not limiting to but including products known as tallow, yellow grease and acid oil), containing rendered fats and oils from any animal, or used cooking oil filtered or otherwise treated to remove visible particulate matter, and which complies with a specification of 2% maximum M+I (moisture plus insoluble impurities) as measured by American Oil Chemists’ Society (AOCS) official methods’[1].
Note: Eggs are considered RAM and must not be fed to ruminants.
A national approach
To ensure Australia has effective feed ban control measures, audits are undertaken by all jurisdictions to verify compliance with feed ban legislation by all parties from manufacture to end-use. Prior to these jurisdictional audits, four national audits of the ruminant feed ban were conducted in Australia.
A uniform national approach to compliance inspection and auditing provides the greatest assurance of compliance with both regulatory controls and with national and international requirements.
Australia’s enforceable bans on the feeding of RAM to ruminant animals are part of a comprehensive national TSE Freedom Assurance Program.
The ruminant feed ban is supported by the following mechanisms:
Quarantine measures to prevent entry into the country of the BSE agent. Since 1966, the importation of animal-derived MBM into Australia has been prohibited from all countries other than New Zealand, which is also free of animal TSEs.
A comprehensive, risk-based compliance inspection program undertaken by state and territory authorities that targets all sectors in the livestock feed chain from renderers to stockfeed manufacturers, stockfeed resellers and end-users.
Various quality management and assurance measures implemented by the ruminant livestock and stockfeed manufacturing industries in Australia to complement the official regulatory and compliance inspection program.
Education and training programs to create awareness and develop the necessary competencies and capacity regarding the legislative rules on animal feed and TSEs.
These activities constitute Australia’s effective RFB, as part of its control measures to prevent the entry and establishment of the BSE agent in this country.
Communications materials
AHA published a series of pamphlets about Australia’s commitment to the ruminant feed ban. The pamphlets target the main three groups involved in the use of restricted animal material:
Animal Health Committee agreed in October 2001 to establish a working group to develop national inspection guidelines for determining compliance with Australia’s ruminant feed ban.
The guidelines provide a basis for each state and territory to participate in a nationally consistent program of inspection for compliance with the legislative provisions of their respective ruminant feed bans. Such a nationally consistent compliance inspection program in concert with other programs, including quarantine import control measures and industry QA systems contribute in a meaningful way to Australia maintaining an effective feed-ban. The guideline document is a comprehensive document that also provides detailed history and objectives of Australia’s ruminant feed ban.
A new working group was formed under TSEFAP to review the National Uniform Guidelines with the aim of increasing the consistency of approach to ruminant feed ban compliance and reporting activities in the states and territories. Changes to the required levels of inspection and sampling were developed by the group and are incorporated into this. These were endorsed by AHC and implemented in 2004. The guidelines are reviewed annually by the National Technical Committee.
It is mandatory in Australia for rendered animal proteins to be produced in accordance with the Australian Standard for Hygienic Rendering of Animal Products.
The standard requires that all rendering plants implement ISO 9000 aligned quality management systems and Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) plans and the labelling of rendered products in accordance with legal requirements.
Feedsafe QA program for stockfeed manufacturers
Through the Stock Feed Manufacturers’ Council of Australia, industry has implemented FeedSafe as a HACCP-based QA program on an individual site basis.
To achieve FeedSafe accreditation, feed manufacturing sites are required to address the elements of the Code of Good Manufacturing Practice for the Feed Milling Industry, particularly methods to ensure effective cleaning, flushing and sequencing between different types of stockfeeds to minimise the possibility of cross-contamination. FeedSafe uses independent third-party site audits to verify compliance with the Code.
Stock feed manufacturers who incorporate used cooking oils (UCO) into their feeds should only use oils from ARA-Accredited processors.
See here from AusMeat: under ARA Accreditation use the search phrase “ARA R” to bring up the live list of accredited Processed UCO suppliers.
Livestock QA programs
Livestock based QA programs that bring together the legislation and practical approach to the feeding of stock include:
Livestock Production Assurance On-Farm Quality Assurance.
LPA Food Safety. National Feedlot Accreditation Scheme.
These QA programs are both ISO9000 and HACCP based. Each program links the legislation to the action being implemented at the farm or feedlot.
Another scheme that includes the requirements of the ruminant feed ban are National Vendor Declarations for the movement of cattle, sheep and goats to sale yards, processors or between properties.
Auditing
The Australian Government, in collaboration with state and territory agencies, conducted several national audits on farms, feedlots, rendering establishments, stockfeed manufacturers and stockfeed resellers between 1998 and 2001.
Since 2003, national audits were superseded by a program of audits contained in the national guidelines, and a specific number of audits is scheduled well into the future (Table 2).
Table 2: Audit frequency for renderer and stockfeed manufacturer establishments
Establishment type
Non-QA
QA
Renderers
12 months
None
Monogastric feeds only (containing RAM)
24 months
48 months
Non-RAM feeds only (whether ruminant or monogastric or both)
24 months
48 months
Monogastric (containing RAM) & ruminant feeds in separate lines
24 months
48 months
Monogastric (containing RAM) & ruminant feeds in same lines
12 months
24 months
In addition, 300 stockfeed retailers and 300 farms are audited every 2 years, with the number of audits being distributed between Australia’s states and territories based on their cattle populations.
The results of these audits have shown that there is an extremely high level of compliance with Australia’s ruminant feed ban. Instances of non-compliance invariably relate to minor matters, such as labelling.
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